Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN WHO BOUGHT THEIR SILENCE
“Who has Gideon told?”
Alistair was already moving toward the door.
“Mother. Answer me.”
Helena's voice trembled.
“The men who were supposed to take the boy tomorrow.”
Eveina scooped Theo into her arms.
“Take him where?”
Alistair stopped in front of her.
For one terrible moment, she expected him to summon a dozen armed men and take complete control.
Instead, he lowered his voice.
“There's a service exit behind the kitchen. I'll have my driver bring the car around. You choose where we go.”
“You're coming with us?”
“Only if you let me.”
Eveina looked into his face.
Six years ago, she would have trusted him with her life.
Tonight, she wasn't sure she could trust him with her son.
But someone had already learned Theo's school schedule.
And Alistair was the only person in the room who understood why.
“You can come,” she said. “But Theo stays with me.”
“Always.”
They left through the kitchen.
Alistair's driver, Samuel Price, had worked for him since before he met Eveina. The older man looked startled when he saw the child.
Then he noticed Theo's gray eyes.
His expression softened.
“Good evening, young man.”
Theo hid behind his mother.
Samuel didn't press.
He simply opened the rear door.
Twenty minutes later, they arrived at a quiet townhouse Alistair owned near Lincoln Park.
There were no guards standing outside.
No black vehicles lining the street.
Just a narrow brick house with white curtains and a porch light.
Eveina was surprised.
“I thought you lived in a mansion.”
“I do.”
“Then what is this?”
“A place where I go when I need to remember I'm a person.”
He said it so quietly that she almost missed it.
Inside, Theo noticed a small wooden train sitting on a bookshelf.
“Can I play with that?”
Alistair hesitated.
“My father made it.”
“Will it break?”
“Probably. It's older than both of us.”
Theo looked disappointed.
Then Alistair placed the train on the carpet.
“But we can be careful.”
While Theo played within sight in the adjoining living room, Alistair called his mother again.
“Come to the Lincoln Park house,” he said. “Alone.”
Helena arrived forty minutes later.
She wore a gray coat and carried a small leather handbag.
The moment she saw Eveina, her face crumpled.
“Oh, dear God.”
Eveina stood.
“Don't.”
Helena stopped.
“You have every right to hate me.”
“Then don't waste my time telling me how sorry you are.”
Alistair closed the door.
“Start with the truth, Mother.”
Helena sat without removing her coat.
Six years earlier, she explained, Gideon Vale had come to her with photographs.
They showed Eveina leaving the nursing school.
Her apartment building.
The small diner where she and Alistair occasionally met.
One photograph showed Eveina standing outside a maternity clinic, visibly pregnant.
Someone had drawn a red circle around her stomach.
Helena believed the pictures were a threat from one of Alistair's enemies.
“Gideon said they knew everything,” she whispered. “He said they'd discovered the baby.”
Eveina stared at her.
“You knew I was pregnant?”
“Yes.”
“And you never told Alistair?”
Helena covered her mouth.
“He was already being threatened. Your relationship had made him vulnerable. Gideon said if Alistair knew about the baby, he'd go after the people responsible, and all three of you would die.”
“So you paid me to disappear.”
“I thought I was saving you.”
Eveina laughed bitterly.
“You sent two strangers into my apartment while I was seven months pregnant.”
Helena lowered her head.
“They were supposed to explain—”
“They told me my baby would grow up without a mother if I refused.”
Alistair went rigid.
His mother looked horrified.
“I never authorized that threat.”
“But you authorized the money,” Eveina said. “And the ticket.”
Helena nodded.
“Fifty thousand dollars.”
“You know what I did with that money?”
Helena shook her head.
“I kept it in a separate account. Every penny I could. I was terrified that one day your people would come back and say I owed them something.”
She swallowed.
“I raised Theo on nursing shifts because I couldn't bear to use money someone had given me to erase his father.”
Alistair looked at her.
He had watched men betray one another over millions.
He had never understood what fifty thousand dollars could mean to a pregnant woman who had nowhere safe to go.
Until now.
“Why did you tell me she died?” he asked his mother.
Helena looked up.
“I didn't.”
Alistair's jaw tightened.
“You were at the funeral.”
“Gideon told me Eveina had been killed after leaving Chicago. He brought me the same police report he gave you.”
“You never questioned it?”
“I did. He said the people who threatened her had found her.”
Eveina sat slowly.
Someone had used Helena's fear to separate them.
Then used her guilt to keep her quiet.
Alistair walked to the window.
“Why sign Theo's release form yesterday?”
Helena hesitated.
“Gideon called me Tuesday. He said he'd located Eveina's son. He claimed the men who threatened her years ago were watching his school.”
“And you believed him again?”
“I wanted to make up for what I'd done.”
“By taking him without asking his mother?”
Helena had no answer.
“He told me the boy would be brought somewhere safe,” she finally said. “And that you had approved it.”
Alistair turned.
“You believed I would take a child from his mother?”
Her silence was answer enough.
For the first time, his anger seemed to give way to shame.
He had spent years teaching people that his wishes were not to be questioned.
Now his own reputation was being used against him.
Eveina looked at Helena.
“Where is Gideon?”
“I don't know. When I realized Alistair hadn't authorized anything, I confronted him. He said I was too emotional to understand.”
“Did you tell him we'd found Theo?” Alistair asked.
Helena nodded.
“And the boy's location?”
“No. He told me himself that you were bringing him to the mansion.”
Alistair's expression darkened.
Someone among his staff had been reporting his movements.
Helena reached into her handbag.
“I brought something.”
She removed a folded photograph.
Eveina recognized the image immediately.
Theo, three years old, sitting on a swing in a red winter coat.
She had taken him to that playground on a snowy Sunday morning.
No one had been with them.
“Where did you get that?” she whispered.
Helena's eyes filled.
“It arrived two years ago. No return address.”
On the back, written in black ink, were seven words.
Keep the mother quiet. Keep the boy hidden.
Alistair took the picture.
The handwriting was familiar.
Not Gideon's.
Not his mother's.
But it belonged to someone who had worked at his side every day.
Before he could speak, Theo looked up from the carpet.
“Mommy, that's my red coat.”
“Yes, baby.”
Theo pointed at the photograph.
“That's the day the lady gave me a cookie.”
Eveina frowned.
“What lady?”
“The one with the little bird necklace.”
Helena made a strangled sound.
Alistair turned toward her.
“Mother?”
Helena gripped the edge of the sofa.
Because the little bird necklace wasn't a detail that could be mistaken.
It was a silver swallow pendant.
A gift from Alistair's father.
And for the past twenty years, only one woman in the Blackthorn household had worn it.
May you like
Helena whispered her name.
“Margaret Vale. Gideon's wife.”
