Chapter 6 - My Dead Mother Left a Message for Elias
No one touched the tablet.
My mother’s voice hung in the nursery like a ghost that had finally grown tired of waiting.
Elias looked paler than I had ever seen him.
“What promise?” I asked.
He did not answer.
I hit play again.
Static crackled.
Then Evelyn continued.
“Elias, if you are with my daughter, listen carefully. Do not tell her everything at once. She will hate you for that, but hatred is survivable. The truth, given too early, may not be.”
The recording clicked off.
“That’s it?” I said.
The technician shook his head. “There are more files, but encrypted.”
“Open them.”
“I need time.”
“How much?”
“Hours. Maybe longer.”
I turned on Elias.
“What did you promise her?”
His eyes stayed on the monitor.
“To keep you away from this life.”
“This life?”
“Mine. Vale’s. All of it.”
“You failed.”
“Yes.”
“No. You watched me marry into it.”
“I didn’t know Caleb was connected.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it’s true.”
I stepped closer.
“Then what did she mean by first promise?”
His silence stretched.
Marco left the room quietly.
Coward.
“Elias.”
“My first promise was that I would never contact you.”
I stared.
“And you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Then how did you break it?”
He looked at Ivy.
“When I took you from the overpass.”
The answer should have softened me.
It did not.
“You were supposed to leave us there?”
“No.”
“Then my mother’s instructions make no sense.”
“They weren’t instructions for that situation.”
“What situation were they for?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
His gaze snapped to mine.
“I omit. I delay. I protect information when it keeps people alive. I do not lie to you.”
“That is the most criminal sentence I’ve ever heard.”
To my surprise, he almost smiled.
Then the nursery door opened.
Marco returned.
“We have a problem.”
“Another one?” I said.
He handed Elias a phone.
A news site displayed a photograph of me being carried from the underpass.
My face was visible.
So were the twins.
Headline: MYSTERY WOMAN SHELTERED BY ALLEGED CRIME BOSS ELIAS VANCE.
My stomach dropped.
“Who leaked it?”
“Three outlets received the same image,” Marco said. “Anonymous sender.”
I read the article.
It described me as Elias’s “secret companion.”
Another site claimed the twins might be his.
I felt nauseated.
“Caleb.”
“Probably,” Elias said.
“Why?”
“To turn public attention toward me. It complicates police response, custody, everything.”
My phone—new, provided by Marco—began vibrating.
I had told only one person the number: Lila Chen, my old coworker from the diner.
I answered.
“Ava?”
“Lila.”
“Oh my God, are you okay?”
I closed my eyes.
“Yes.”
“The news says—”
“Most of it is wrong.”
“Where are you?”
I looked at Elias.
He shook his head slightly.
“Safe.”
Lila started crying.
“Caleb came to the diner.”
“When?”
“An hour ago.”
My blood froze.
“What did he want?”
“You.”
“Did he hurt you?”
“No. He asked where your mother used to keep important things.”
I stared at the silver key on the dresser.
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing. Ava, he looked scared.”
Caleb scared.
That frightened me more than Caleb angry.
“Did he say anything else?”
Lila hesitated.
“He said, ‘If she opens the box, everyone dies.’”
The call ended.
Elias was already putting on his coat.
“Where are you going?”
“To find the box first.”
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“We discussed this.”
“We discussed documents, not gunfights.”
“Then don’t have a gunfight.”
Marco coughed.
Elias ignored him.
“Ava.”
“My mother left the key to me.”
“It has my initials.”
“She left it with instructions about me.”
He stared.
I lifted my chin.
“Try locking me in the bedroom.”
Marco looked away, perhaps hiding a smile.
Elias sighed.
“Ten minutes. Dress warm.”
We traveled in three SUVs to a bank in Lower Manhattan that officially closed twenty years earlier.
The building now housed private offices, but Elias’s men led us beneath it into an old vault corridor.
“Your family owned this?” I asked.
“My father used it.”
“Did he own anything normal?”
“A bowling alley.”
I looked at him.
“Seriously?”
“No.”
I almost laughed, then hated myself for it.
The key fit a narrow brass box numbered 417.
Inside was no money.
No jewelry.
Only a photograph, a cassette tape, and a folded sheet of paper.
The photograph showed my mother standing beside a younger man.
Elias’s father, Gabriel Vance.
They were holding a baby.
Me.
My knees weakened.
Elias caught my elbow.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Assume.”
“I’m in your father’s arms.”
“Yes.”
“My mother is beside him.”
“Yes.”
“And you want me not to assume?”
“I want evidence.”
I unfolded the paper.
It was in my mother’s handwriting.
Ava, if you are reading this, then Roman’s blood has been confirmed and Gabriel’s bargain has failed.
I looked at Elias.
“What bargain?”
He shook his head.
I kept reading.
Roman Vale was your father. Gabriel Vance protected us after Roman died, but protection always has a price in their world. I paid mine by carrying a secret that could destroy both families.
My hands shook.
Below was a list of account numbers and one sentence underlined twice.
THE CHILDREN MUST NEVER BELONG TO A MAN WHO CALLS THEM HEIRS BEFORE HE CALLS THEM BY THEIR NAMES.
I started crying.
Elias read over my shoulder.
“She knew.”
“What?”
“She knew someone would use my children.”
“Yes.”
The cassette tape clicked when Marco found an old recorder in a storage cabinet.
My mother’s voice emerged again.
“Gabriel, if you hear this, you broke your word. If Elias hears it, then I am sorry. You were a boy when your father made you responsible for a debt that was never yours.”
Elias went rigid.
The tape continued.
“Ava must never learn what happened the night Roman died until she is strong enough to choose what to do with it.”
My breathing slowed.
“What happened?”
The tape hissed.
Then a man’s voice interrupted the recording.
Gabriel Vance.
“I killed Roman Vale.”
Elias stepped backward.
I stared at him.
His face showed something I had not thought a man like him could feel.
Shock.
May you like
The tape continued.
“And if Ava ever learns why, my son will lose everything.”
