Chapter 6
We went to St. Catherine’s before dawn.
Not everyone.
Me.
Rafe.
Arthur.
Vincent came because I wanted to watch his face.
Miranda and Gavin stayed at the lake estate under guard.
The children slept in my room with two trusted women nearby.
I almost stayed.
Milo had asked me not to leave.
That mattered more than any box.
So before going, I woke him gently.
“I have to drive somewhere.”
His eyes opened halfway.
“You come back?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Breakfast.”
“Promise?”
I hated promises adults could not guarantee.
But some things deserve commitment.
“I’ll do everything I can.”
He accepted that.
Better than a lie.
St. Catherine’s looked harmless.
White house.
Pines.
Lake.
Exactly the kind of place people photograph for magazines.
Inside, dust covered most rooms.
Arthur led us upstairs.
Third bedroom.
Behind an old radiator panel was a tin box.
BENNETT.
My childhood nickname written in Cecilia’s hand.
Ben.
No one called me that anymore.
My throat tightened.
Inside were letters.
One photograph.
A silver bracelet.
And a cassette recorder.
Rafe found batteries.
Cecilia’s seventeen-year-old voice filled the room.
“Ben, if they ever tell you I left because I didn’t love you, they’re lying.”
I sat down.
Vincent closed his eyes.
She continued.
“They brought me here because Dad said choosing Thomas meant rejecting Ferrante.”
Thomas.
The boy.
“I told them loving someone else didn’t erase loving you.”
My chest hurt.
Then:
“Uncle Vincent said children only understand family when leaving costs something.”
I looked at him.
He would not meet my eyes.
Cecilia continued.
“If they ever do this to you, don’t believe them when they say it’s protection.”
Twenty-six years later, they had done it to my children instead.
I stopped the tape.
Not because I could not hear more.
Because I understood.
May you like
The suitcases were not a new conspiracy.
They were an old family method modernized.
