Chapter 15 - Eleanor’s Cowardice
The page was folded inside Mom’s old recipe book.
The stolen one.
Police recovered it from a storage unit linked to a contractor who admitted being paid by a Thorne intermediary to take it from my apartment.
The contractor pleaded to burglary-related charges.
No grand conspiracy beyond that.
The recipe book came back damaged.
Coffee stain.
Bent cover.
Inside the back cardboard was a narrow slit.
A folded letter.
Not addressed to me.
Dante.
Dated eight years earlier.
Four years after Lorenzo died.
Mom had planned to contact him.
Dante, your father is dead. I told myself that would make truth safe. It did not. Malcolm is still powerful, and Mara is building a life. I am ashamed to admit I am choosing my daughter over your right to know.
I read and felt anger.
Real anger.
Mom had withheld truth from a man whose mother died.
Not only to protect me as child.
When I was nineteen.
Adult.
She still stayed silent.
The letter continued:
I fear that if Dante reopens Saint Gabriel, Malcolm will find Mara. I know this is cowardice. I cannot pretend otherwise.
There.
Mom called it what it was.
Love.
Fear.
Cowardice.
All together.
I gave letter to Dante.
He read.
Said nothing.
“Are you angry?”
“Yes.”
“At Mom?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
He looked at me, surprised.
“You’re allowed.”
“She was scared for you.”
“And she still denied you truth.”
He folded letter.
“I don’t know how to feel.”
“You don’t need one emotion.”
That became our language.
Dante visited Eleanor’s grave alone the next day.
When he returned:
“I forgave her.”
“That fast?”
“No.”
“What?”
“I told a dead woman I was angry.”
“That isn’t forgiveness.”
“No.”
He smiled faintly.
“Maybe later.”
Good.
No forced closure.
My relationship with Dante deepened after trial.
We spent two nights a week together.
Then three.
Nora adored him.
I watched carefully for control.
He sometimes defaulted to arranging.
Security.
Cars.
Doctors.
Money.
I stopped him when needed.
He adjusted.
He watched me work.
Respected that too.
One night he said:
“Move in.”
I said:
“No.”
He exhaled.
“May I ask why?”
“Because I want us to choose each other when there is no crisis.”
He thought.
“That is annoyingly reasonable.”
“Yes.”
Six months later, I said yes.
Not to marriage.
To sharing a house.
We rented a neutral place.
Not Moretti mansion.
Not my apartment.
A townhouse with enough room for Nora.
Dante’s security team complained.
We installed normal residential security.
No armed men in kitchen.
Rafael called it reckless.
I called it suburbia.
Then Bianca contacted Naomi.
Her probation was ending.
She wanted permission to send me a letter.
I nearly refused.
Then said yes.
Not because I owed.
Because I was curious.
The first sentence:
I knew your baby was probably not Preston’s before I followed you to the cemetery.
May you like
I stopped.
She had lied even to herself.
