Chapter 7 - A PROMISE IN THE DIRT
Victor looked at the silver swallow resting in Maya’s small palm. The metal was worn smooth by years of anxious fingers rubbing against its wings. With trembling hands, Victor reached into his own collar and pulled out the identical gold swallow.
He held it beside hers.
The two birds mirrored each other perfectly—one gold, one silver, their wings angled to touch when brought together.
Maya’s eyes widened, looking from the lockets up to Victor’s face. “You have the other bird.”
“I’ve carried it every day since you were born,” Victor whispered, his voice trembling with emotion. “Your mother was my sister, Maya. I looked for her for so long. I didn't stop because I didn't care; I stopped because bad people told me she was gone.”
Maya looked at Martha Hayes, who nodded with tears in her eyes. The little girl reached out a hand and touched Victor’s sleeve, feeling the coarse wool of his coat. “Mama said you lived in a house with big windows and piano music.”
“I do,” Victor said. “And the piano hasn't been played in a very long time because it was waiting for you.”
Martha stepped forward, crossing her arms against the afternoon chill. “Mr. Alliance, Helena didn't die without leaving answers. Six months before she passed, she found an old newspaper clipping in a library archive. She recognized the mansion. She knew who she was.”
Victor looked up, startled. “She knew?”
“Yes,” Martha said, pulling a manila envelope from beneath her arm. “She wrote a letter to the Alliance Trust in Manhattan, asking for her family. Two weeks later, a man visited this farm. An older man with a silver-topped cane.”
Victor felt the blood drain from his face. “Raymond Sterling came here?”
“He told Helena that if she ever brought her daughter near the Alliance family, he would tie her up in custody court, take the child, and declare Helena mentally unfit using her orphan records,” Martha explained, her voice trembling with anger. “He gave her five thousand dollars in cash and warned her to stay silent. It broke her heart, Mr. Alliance. It took whatever fight she had left.”
Victor stood up slowly, the grief inside him hardening into an unyielding resolve. “He will never touch this child. Not as long as I have breath in my body.”
May you like
Kiara looked at Victor, her voice tense. “Mr. Alliance... Raymond doesn't just want to keep the trust. The land sale he wanted you to sign yesterday—that land was Helena’s legal inheritance. If you sign it over, Raymond’s development company owns it outright, and any claim Maya has to the estate is erased under the thirty-year statute.”
Victor checked his watch. The board meeting to finalize the transfer was scheduled for ten o'clock the following morning in Manhattan.
