Chapter 6
That night, I opened Elena’s room for the first time in three years.
The handle felt colder than the rest of the house.
Inside, everything waited.
Her silver brush.
Her perfume.
Lily’s pink sweater folded on the chair because my daughter had dragged it there the morning she died.
I had kept the room sealed as if grief could preserve love.
It only preserved pain.
Hannah stood in the hallway behind me.
“You don’t have to show me this.”
“I do.”
She stepped inside carefully.
Ellie was asleep in the medical suite under guard.
Hannah looked at Lily’s sweater and covered her mouth.
“I’m sorry.”
I nodded because words would not come.
I went to Elena’s vanity.
In the bottom drawer was a locked journal.
I had never opened it.
The key was taped beneath the drawer, exactly where Elena used to hide small things from Lily.
I unlocked it.
The final pages were written the week before the bombing.
Adrian trusts Matteo too much.
Vincent is frightened.
A worker named David Carter brought proof of false shipments.
If anything happens, check the old chapel safe.
My chest tightened.
Hannah whispered, “David went to your wife?”
I nodded.
The next line made my vision blur.
Lily heard Matteo threaten me. I must get her away from this house.
I sat down.
My daughter had heard something.
My wife had known.
And then they died.
Hannah read the page over my shoulder.
Her voice was barely sound.
“David didn’t die because of scaffolding.”
“No.”
“And your wife didn’t die because of your enemies.”
I closed the journal.
“No.”
The room felt smaller.
The air heavier.
I had spent three years hunting the wrong ghosts.
A rival family had taken credit for the car bomb.
I had believed them because believing an outside enemy was easier than seeing rot at my own table.
Hannah touched Lily’s sweater.
Then pulled her hand back.
“Ellie saved you because she knows what it feels like not to breathe.”
I looked at her.
“And now I know why someone wants her silent.”
May you like
The chapel safe waited on the east edge of the property.
And for the first time in three years, I was ready to open what my wife had hidden.
