Chapter 1
“Those aren’t my ashes. Victor knows where I am.”
Isabella’s voice shook through the phone.
I stopped breathing.
Victor had been moving toward the doorway when my bodyguards stepped into his path. He froze there, one hand still half raised, while Lucy pressed herself against my side and stared at the open urn.
I did not look away from my brother.
“Isabella.”
A breath came through the speaker.
Then another.
“I’m here.”
Two years.
Two years of putting flowers beside that silver urn. Two years of watching Lucy kiss her mother’s photograph goodnight. Two years of telling my daughter that Mommy loved her even though Mommy could not come home.
Victor had stood beside us through all of it.
He attended the memorial.
Held Lucy when she cried.
Told me grief was making me reckless.
I gripped the phone harder.
“Where are you?”
Silence.
Then Isabella whispered:
“I can’t say it yet.”
Victor suddenly spoke.
“Antonio, turn that off.”
I looked at him.
He realized immediately what he had done.
Lucy looked between us.
“Uncle Victor?”
Victor’s face changed.
I lifted one hand.
The bodyguards closed another step around him.
Isabella heard his voice through the phone.
Her breathing became faster.
“Don’t let him near Lucy.”
My eyes hardened.
Victor stared at me.
“You don’t understand.”
“No.”
I glanced down at the false ashes still inside the urn.
“I understand exactly one thing.”
He said nothing.
“My wife is alive.”
I looked at Lucy.
“And you let my daughter mourn her.”
Victor’s face went pale.
Then Isabella whispered something else.
“Antonio… the urn was never supposed to stay sealed forever.”
I looked at the phone.
“What does that mean?”
May you like
Her answer came softly.
“It was supposed to open when Victor thought you had finally given him everything.”
