Chapter 5
Vivienne stopped denying the hidden room.
Instead, she changed the meaning of it.
“Natalie stayed there one night,” she said. “Maybe two.”
Mrs. Keller looked at her.
“Four.”
Vivienne ignored her.
“She needed time to calm down.”
Cassandro almost laughed.
“You locked her behind stone.”
“She had food.”
“She had Audrey used against her.”
“She had choices.”
The room went quiet.
Cassandro stared at her.
“What choices?”
Vivienne realized too late that he had heard the wording.
Damian stepped in.
“Natalie could keep quiet and return to normal life.”
“And the other choice?”
No answer.
Cassandro looked at Mrs. Keller.
She lowered her eyes.
“They told Natalie she could leave.”
Vivienne smiled.
“Exactly.”
Mrs. Keller continued.
“Without Audrey.”
Vivienne’s smile disappeared.
Cassandro felt something inside him settle into a colder place.
Not rage.
Clarity.
“You told my wife she could walk away from captivity if she abandoned our daughter.”
Damian crossed his arms.
“She chose not to.”
“Of course she chose not to.”
“Then that was her decision.”
Cassandro stepped toward him.
“No.”
Damian’s jaw tightened.
Cassandro continued.
“That was yours.”
Mrs. Keller began crying again.
“On the fourth night, Natalie agreed to record something.”
Cassandro turned.
“What?”
Mrs. Keller’s face broke.
“The message you received.”
Cassandro remembered every word.
Natalie’s voice had sounded exhausted.
She said she could not live inside the Moretti family anymore. She said loving Cassandro had become a cage. She said she wanted him to stop searching.
He listened to that message until he hated himself enough to believe it.
Vivienne had been the person who sat beside him afterward.
The person who told him some women simply ran when family became difficult.
Cassandro looked at her.
“You were there when she recorded it.”
Vivienne did not answer.
Mrs. Keller did.
“Yes.”
Cassandro closed his eyes.
Three years of grief rearranged themselves.
Natalie had not told him to stop searching because she no longer loved him.
She had told him because someone was standing beside her deciding what happened to Audrey if she said the wrong thing.
Then Mrs. Keller whispered:
“There was another recording.”
Cassandro opened his eyes.
May you like
“What recording?”
“The one Natalie made after Vivienne thought the machine was off.”
