Chapter 4 - MY MOTHER HAD BEEN WATCHING ME FOR ELEVEN YEARS
-4
I wanted to go to Boston immediately.
Sebastian said no.
I told him he had approximately five seconds before I stopped caring whether he was the most feared mafia boss in New York.
Mara intervened.
Not emotionally.
Practically.
“Nora left with Gideon voluntarily according to the camera.”
That stopped me.
“Voluntarily?”
“Yes.”
“She wasn’t dragged?”
“No.”
“Threatened?”
“Can’t tell.”
Sebastian replayed the clinic footage.
My mother was older.
Thin.
Silver through her dark hair.
But unmistakably her.
I knew the way she tilted her head when listening.
The way one hand always held her handbag strap near her chest.
She walked beside Gideon Shaw.
He was tall even at sixty-eight.
White hair.
Dark overcoat.
He touched her elbow as they entered the car.
She did not recoil.
Sebastian’s jaw tightened.
“He knows her.”
“Clearly.”
“What does that mean?”
“No idea.”
I felt something close to anger at my mother.
Not rational maybe.
But real.
For eleven years, I had believed she was dead.
I had cried at a memorial service with no body because my stepfather told me the cancer progressed too quickly and she wanted cremation.
I had kept her perfume.
Her letters.
The pendant I thought she gave me.
She was alive.
Walking.
Choosing cars.
Choosing silence.
“Who was my stepfather?” I asked suddenly.
Mara looked up.
“Thomas Quinn?”
“Yes.”
“Where is he?”
“Died four years ago.”
“Actually?”
Mara paused.
“Good question.”
We checked.
Death certificate.
Burial.
Hospital records.
More substantial.
Likely real.
Thomas had raised me from six to eighteen.
Quiet man.
Insurance adjuster.
Never affectionate, never cruel.
After Mom “died,” he became distant.
I went to college and rarely saw him.
Then he died of a stroke.
“Was he part of Lark?”
Yes.
Former St. Agnes logistics employee.
My whole second life had been arranged.
Mom married one of the people who helped create my new identity.
My childhood home had been a safehouse disguised as suburbia.
I felt stupid.
Sebastian said:
“You were a child.”
“I was eighteen when I left.”
“You had no reason to investigate your own birth certificate.”
“I should have known.”
“No.”
His voice sharpened.
“Do not take responsibility for somebody else’s successful lie.”
I looked at him.
Maybe he needed to hear that too.
His own childhood had gaps.
His own father had lied.
Mara found Thomas Quinn’s old financial records.
Payments from a trust.
Caroline Ward Protective Reserve.
My mother had lived on money from Sebastian’s mother for years.
Then after Caroline’s fund ran low, another payer appeared.
Gideon Shaw.
Monthly.
Until Mom’s staged death.
My stomach dropped.
“He paid her.”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“Could have been protection.”
“Or silence.”
Sebastian’s face hardened.
Exactly.
Then we found photographs in Keene’s file.
Not only me.
My college graduation.
My first apartment.
My first job.
My twenty-fifth birthday dinner.
Mom had been there.
Not physically beside me.
Across streets.
Inside cars.
In one photograph, a gray-haired woman stood reflected in a café window while I laughed with friends.
Nora.
Watching.
My eyes filled.
“She came.”
Mara said nothing.
“She watched me graduate.”
Yes.
“Why didn’t she come to me?”
No answer.
Sebastian sat beside me, but did not touch me.
That mattered.
He was learning.
Or remembering.
“I hate her.”
I whispered.
Then:
“I want her back.”
Both true.
Sebastian nodded once.
No correction.
Then Mara’s investigator called again.
Gideon’s car had been traced to a private airfield in Westchester.
No flight filed.
Another vehicle left.
Destination Manhattan.
“Coming here?”
“Maybe.”
Sebastian ordered eyes on Gideon’s townhouse.
No confrontation.
Then I asked:
“Why would Gideon bring her toward us?”
Mara answered:
“Maybe he isn’t the enemy.”
We all went quiet.
That was possible.
Keene said:
Do not trust Gideon.
But dead men can be manipulated.
Messages planted.
Photographs staged.
Perhaps Gideon protected Nora.
Perhaps he paid her because Alistair ordered it.
Maybe the warning was meant to divide Sebastian from someone loyal.
“Who benefits if Sebastian distrusts Gideon?” I asked.
Sebastian answered immediately.
“Luca.”
His best friend.
Underboss.
Head of security.
The man whose access code opened the empty elevator.
I looked at him.
“You suspect him now.”
“I suspect everyone now.”
“Even Mara?”
“Yes.”
Mara rolled her eyes.
“Healthy.”
I almost laughed.
Then Sebastian’s phone rang.
Luca.
Perfect timing.
Sebastian answered normally.
“Where are you?”
Luca’s voice sounded irritated.
“Trying to figure out why half my security access was revoked.”
“Because someone used your override code.”
“What?”
“To send an empty elevator to my penthouse.”
Pause.
“That wasn’t me.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
“I know you say it wasn’t you.”
Luca exhaled.
“Where are you?”
“Why?”
“Because someone hit Pier 19.”
The warehouse where Keene was found.
Sebastian’s face changed.
“What happened?”
“Fire.”
Again.
The Lark file room.
Evidence being destroyed.
Luca continued.
“Two of our people are missing.”
“Any bodies?”
“Not yet.”
Then:
“And Mara’s car exploded.”
Mara stood.
“What?”
“Outside the tower.”
No one was inside.
A warning.
Or attempt.
Sebastian looked at Mara.
Luca said:
“Seb, whatever you’re doing, somebody is ahead of us.”
That sounded genuine.
Maybe.
Then Luca added:
“Gideon called me.”
Sebastian’s eyes narrowed.
“When?”
“Ten minutes ago.”
“What did he say?”
“That Valerie’s mother wants a meeting.”
My heart stopped.
“Where?”
“St. Patrick’s Cathedral.”
Public.
Cameras.
Crowds.
Interesting.
“When?”
“Noon.”
Forty minutes.
Sebastian said:
“No.”
I grabbed his wrist.
“Yes.”
He looked at me.
“No.”
“She is my mother.”
“And if it’s a trap?”
“Then we prepare.”
“Valerie.”
“You do not get to make this decision for me because we slept together.”
His face tightened.
“I’m not.”
“You’re doing it because you’re used to controlling danger.”
“Yes.”
“At least admit it.”
“I just did.”
Good.
Mara intervened.
“We can surveil the location.”
Sebastian hated it.
I could see.
Then he said:
“You do not leave my sight.”
“Fine.”
“That is not ownership.”
“I know.”
“If you want to walk away from me after this—”
“Sebastian.”
He stopped.
“One catastrophe at a time.”
A shadow of a smile.
Gone quickly.
At 11:58, we entered St. Patrick’s through separate doors.
Tourists.
Candles.
Quiet footsteps.
The city outside loud and indifferent.
I saw Gideon first.
Older man in a dark suit sitting halfway down the nave.
Beside him—
my mother.
I stopped.
She turned.
Our eyes met.
Her face collapsed.
“Valerie.”
Eleven years.
I could not move.
She stood.
I hated her.
I loved her.
I wanted to run.
I wanted to hit her.
I wanted to be six.
Instead, I walked forward.
When she opened her arms, I stopped three feet away.
Her hands fell.
Good.
She whispered:
“I’m sorry.”
I looked at Gideon.
Sebastian stood several steps behind me.
Security spread invisibly.
“Tell me why you’re alive.”
Mom cried.
“I never died.”
“I noticed.”
She almost smiled.
Then lost it.
“I left because they found Thomas.”
“Who?”
She looked past me.
Not at Gideon.
At Sebastian.
“The people who killed his father.”
Sebastian went still.
“My father died of a stroke.”
Nora shook her head.
“No.”
Gideon finally spoke.
“Alistair was poisoned.”
Sebastian’s face became stone.
“By whom?”
Gideon answered:
“The same man who has been standing beside you for twenty years.”
I already knew the name before he said it.
“Luca Ferretti.”
Then every phone in Sebastian’s security detail vibrated at once.
An emergency alert.
Crown Meridian Tower.
System breach.
Executive floor lockdown.
May you like
Luca had seized the building.
And somewhere inside Sebastian’s own tower was the blue ledger we had not even known we possessed.
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