Chapter 10 - THE LAST LIE MY FATHER PROTECTED
“My mother is dead.”
The words came automatically.
Dominic stood across from me inside the nearly empty station office while commuters moved beyond the glass as if the world had not just split open.
“She died when I was eight.”
“That is what David told you.”
“I went to her funeral.”
“I know.”
“I saw the coffin.”
“It was closed.”
My hands began shaking.
“Stop.”
“Elena—”
“No.”
I backed away.
“My mother died in a car fire.”
“No.”
“You don’t get to rewrite my childhood.”
“I’m trying to tell you what David couldn’t.”
Maya closed the office door.
Sofia stood beside me.
“What really happened?” she asked.
Dominic looked at me.
“Your mother’s name was Catherine Ward.”
“I know my mother’s name.”
“She worked for Malcolm Vale before she married David.”
Everything inside me stopped.
“In what capacity?”
“Financial compliance.”
Maya understood first.
“Oh God.”
Dominic nodded.
“She found the first Orpheus transfers eleven years before David did.”
I stared at him.
“Mom was part of this?”
“She discovered it.”
“Then why fake her death?”
“She tried to report Vale.”
History repeated itself.
My parents had both stumbled into the same nightmare.
“Vale threatened Elena,” Maya said.
Dominic nodded.
“Catherine disappeared to protect both of you. David believed a staged death was the only way Vale would stop looking.”
I could barely form words.
“Where is she?”
Dominic hesitated.
That hesitation nearly killed me.
“Where?”
“Vermont.”
I laughed.
It came out broken.
“My mother has been living in Vermont?”
“Under another name.”
“For twenty years?”
“Yes.”
“And you knew?”
“Since the night David died.”
I hit him.
The slap cracked across the room.
Dominic did not move.
“You knew my mother was alive for thirteen years.”
“Yes.”
“You stood at my father’s grave every year knowing I had another parent somewhere.”
“Yes.”
“How could you?”
“Because I promised him.”
“I don’t care about your promise!”
“I know.”
“You should have told me.”
“I know.”
I turned away because if I looked at him again, I might hit him twice.
Sofia grabbed my hand.
“Why didn’t Catherine come back after David died?”
Maya asked the question I could not.
Dominic answered quietly.
“Because Vale found her.”
I turned.
“What?”
“He never proved Catherine survived. But after David’s death, Vale’s people started watching Elena constantly.”
My memories shifted.
Unfamiliar cars.
A counselor who always knew where I had been.
Scholarship officials who asked strange questions.
I had interpreted it all as paranoia inherited from grief.
“Catherine believed returning would confirm she was alive.”
“So she abandoned me.”
“No.”
“Don’t defend her.”
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I’m telling you she wrote you a letter every month for twelve years.”
Silence.
“Where are they?”
“David asked me to keep them unless Orpheus fell.”
My anger vanished beneath something much larger.
Dominic opened a locked case in his car.
Inside were bundles of envelopes.
Hundreds.
Every one addressed to me.
My mother’s handwriting.
I recognized it from birthday cards preserved in old albums.
I touched the first envelope.
Couldn’t open it.
Not yet.
“Take me to her.”
We drove north that afternoon.
Maya remained in the city coordinating arrests.
Sofia stayed with her mother.
Dominic and I barely spoke.
Six hours later, we reached a small town surrounded by mountains.
The house was blue.
Ordinary.
A porch.
Wind chimes.
A garden.
A woman opened the door.
She had silver in her dark hair.
For one second, I saw a stranger.
Then I saw my own eyes.
She covered her mouth.
“Elena.”
I hated that she knew me instantly.
I hated that I knew her too.
“Mom?”
She collapsed against the doorway.
I don’t remember crossing the yard.
I only remember her arms around me.
Her crying.
My crying.
Thirteen years of anger colliding with twenty years of grief.
Later, we sat at the kitchen table.
Catherine told me everything.
She had discovered suspicious transfers while working for a nonprofit connected to Vale.
When she reported them, a colleague disappeared.
Vale’s people threatened me.
Dad arranged her disappearance with help from an undercover contact.
The funeral had been staged.
She thought the separation would last months.
Then years passed.
Every time she planned to return, another threat appeared.
“My greatest mistake,” she whispered, “was believing there would someday be a perfect safe moment.”
I stared at her.
“There never was.”
“No.”
“Dad knew?”
“Yes.”
“He visited you?”
“Twice.”
The second time was one month before he died.
“He told me he was close to destroying Orpheus.”
She looked toward Dominic.
“And he told me that if anything happened, Mr. Rinaldi would know where I was.”
Dominic lowered his eyes.
“Why did Dad trust him?”
Catherine smiled sadly.
“Because your father once watched Dominic carry seven terrified girls out of a warehouse before checking whether his own sister was among them.”
Dominic looked uncomfortable.
“That story gets exaggerated.”
“Not by David.”
I finally opened one of Mom’s letters.
It was dated my sixteenth birthday.
She wrote about remembering the day I was born.
About watching from a distance while I walked into high school.
About wanting to cross the street.
About forcing herself not to.
I cried until there were no tears left.
For several hours, I thought perhaps the danger had finally passed.
Then Dominic received a call.
His expression changed.
“What?”
He listened.
“Are you sure?”
He stood.
“We need to leave.”
My mother went pale.
“What happened?”
Dominic looked at me.
“Vale escaped federal transport.”
Maya called seconds later.
Her voice was breathless.
“There was an attack on the convoy. Two marshals are wounded. Vale is gone.”
“How?”
“Someone inside leaked the route.”
Dominic looked toward the dark road outside.
Catherine stood.
“He knows this place.”
I turned.
“How?”
“He sent me a photograph last year.”
My blood froze.
“What photograph?”
She walked to a drawer and removed an envelope.
Inside was a picture of this house.
Written on the back:
You were never invisible.
A vehicle engine sounded outside.
Dominic killed the lights.
“Basement. Now.”
Mom grabbed my hand.
We moved.
Glass shattered in the front room.
Dominic’s men fired.
Someone shouted.
Then smoke began pouring through the hallway.
“They’re burning the house,” Catherine whispered.
Dominic forced open a basement window.
“You two go.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll follow.”
“No.”
“Elena.”
“You spent thirteen years obeying my father’s instructions. For once, stop deciding what happens to me.”
A strange smile crossed his face.
“Fine.”
He climbed out after us.
We ran toward the tree line.
Behind us, Catherine’s house burned.
Then headlights exploded between the trees.
An SUV blocked our path.
Malcolm Vale stepped out.
He held a handgun.
His clothes were dirty from the escape.
His television-perfect appearance was gone.
He looked at my mother.
May you like
“Well,” he said.
“After twenty years, the dead finally come home.”
