Chapter 4 - The Woman Who Knew My Mother
The photograph changed Adrian.
Not visibly.
He remained calm.
But his security doubled.
The estate became a fortress.
I hated it.
I also understood why.
Someone had discovered that Adrian cared about me.
That made me valuable.
We received another message the next morning.
COME TO THE OLD SAINT MICHAEL'S CHURCH AT MIDNIGHT.
COME ALONE.
Adrian refused immediately.
“No.”
“It could contain answers.”
“It could contain a bullet.”
“I am tired of everyone deciding what I can do.”
“And I am tired of burying people.”
The words landed harder than he intended.
He looked away.
I softened.
“I'm not trying to be reckless.”
“I know.”
“Then help me understand.”
He sat across from me.
“Fifteen years ago, Lucia disappeared after stealing the ledger.”
“What happened to her?”
“I thought Victor killed her.”
“And now?”
“Now I don't know.”
A woman named Clara Hayes contacted us that afternoon.
She had worked for my mother.
She was eighty-two and living in a nursing home.
When she saw me, she began crying.
“You have her face.”
“My mother?”
“Yes.”
“What did you know?”
She looked at Adrian.
“I was waiting for him to come.”
“Why?”
“Because Gabriel promised me.”
She reached into a drawer.
Inside was an old envelope.
“My mother gave this to me,” I said.
Clara nodded.
“She told me never to open it unless someone dangerous came asking questions.”
I opened it.
Inside was a letter from my mother.
My hands shook as I read.
Isabella,
If you're reading this, then Gabriel failed to keep you away from the past.
I am sorry.
Your father was not the man I told you he was.
He belonged to a family that survived by fear.
I left because I wanted you to have a normal life.
But your aunt Lucia tried to protect us.
She found out that Victor Moretti was planning to kill Daniel.
She stole his ledger.
Then she disappeared.
I believed she was dead.
But if she isn't, find her.
She may be the only person who knows why you carry the mark.
At the bottom was another sentence.
NEVER TRUST THE MAN WHO WEARS THE SILVER RING.
Adrian read it.
“Silver ring?”
He looked at his own hands.
He didn't wear one.
Then he frowned.
“Blake.”
“Who?”
“Your uncle's lawyer.”
“Gabriel had a lawyer?”
“Yes.”
He had handled all of Gabriel's finances.
We found Blake at his office.
He was friendly.
Too friendly.
He wore a silver ring.
When he saw me, he froze.
Then he smiled.
“Isabella.”
I knew immediately.
“You knew my mother.”
“Yes.”
“You knew my uncle.”
“Yes.”
“You knew Lucia.”
His smile disappeared.
“I met her once.”
“Liar,” Adrian said.
Blake's face hardened.
“You should leave.”
Adrian stepped forward.
“You've been following her.”
“I have no idea what you're talking about.”
Blake looked at me.
“Your uncle trusted the wrong people.”
“What did he leave?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why were you searching his storage unit?”
Blake went pale.
We left.
On the drive back, I asked Adrian,
“What aren't you telling me?”
He was silent.
“Adrian.”
He sighed.
“I knew Blake was dirty.”
“How long?”
“Years.”
“And you didn't tell Gabriel?”
“I did.”
“Then why was he still alive?”
Adrian gripped the steering wheel.
“Because he wanted to believe Blake could be redeemed.”
That night, I found something in the old photograph of my mother.
A tiny reflection in the window.
A man.
Silver ring.
Blake.
He had been there the day the photograph was taken.
Which meant he'd known my family much longer than he admitted.
We returned to the estate.
Grandma was waiting in the kitchen.
She had something in her hand.
A letter.
“This arrived for you.”
I opened it.
The handwriting was unmistakable.
My mother's.
But my mother had been dead for twenty years.
Unless she had written it shortly before she died.
It said:
Meet me where the river remembers.
I stared at Adrian.
“What does that mean?”
He knew.
“The old ferry dock.”
We drove there at midnight.
The river was black beneath the moon.
An old woman waited under a streetlight.
Her face was hidden beneath a scarf.
Adrian stepped forward.
“Lucia?”
The woman lowered the scarf.
I gasped.
She looked almost exactly like my mother.
But older.
Scarred.
Alive.
She looked at me.
“My God.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Isabella.”
I couldn't move.
“You know me.”
“I loved you before you could walk.”
I whispered the only question that mattered.
“Why did you leave?”
Lucia looked at Adrian.
“Because your father died because of me.”
Adrian stared.
“You said you were protecting her.”
“I was.”
“Then why did you disappear?”
“Because the ledger wasn't just a list of criminals.”
“What was it?”
Lucia looked at me.
“It contained the names of the people who ordered the deaths of my family.”
She paused.
“And your father was one of them.”
Silence.
I felt the ground disappear beneath my feet.
“My father ordered deaths?”
“No,” Lucia whispered.
“He was on the list because someone wanted him dead.”
“Who?”
Lucia looked at Adrian.
May you like
Then back at me.
“Your mother.”
