Chapter 12 - Erin’s Half of the Secret
Erin had kept one secret too.
Not because she wanted to.
Because Kathleen asked.
After Maeve was discharged, Erin brought a small envelope to Falcone Manor.
“I was supposed to give you this if something happened to me.”
Maeve stared.
“Why would Mom give a ten-year-old that instruction?”
“She gave it to Grandma. Grandma gave it to me before she died.”
Maeve closed her eyes.
“Of course.”
Inside was half of a silver medallion.
Sofia’s profile on one side.
A table on the other.
Roman recognized it.
“My mother’s family crest.”
Maeve looked at him.
“Why half?”
Gabriel answered.
“There were two.”
The other half was missing.
Roman’s mother wore it in every childhood photograph.
After she died, it vanished.
Erin said, “Grandma told me Mom gave her this after the accident.”
“Why didn’t she give it to me?”
Erin looked embarrassed.
“She said you would try to solve everything.”
Maeve stared.
Declan laughed.
She glared.
“Sorry.”
Erin continued.
“Grandma said I was better at waiting.”
“That is betrayal.”
“It is accurate.”
The medallion contained a microscopic engraving along the edge.
Numbers.
Gabriel enlarged them.
A storage locker.
Not a bank.
Boston freight terminal.
Roman frowned.
“That facility belonged to my father.”
Maeve looked at him.
“Past tense?”
“I sold it five years ago.”
The locker still existed.
Unclaimed.
Inside they found one suitcase.
Sofia’s.
Clothes.
Passport.
Three train tickets to Montreal dated two days after her death.
Names:
Sofia Falcone.
Kathleen Donnelly.
Roman Falcone.
Only Roman.
He stared.
Declan went still.
Gabriel looked hurt.
Maeve immediately saw it.
“Wait.”
Roman opened another envelope.
Two more tickets.
Different train.
Declan and Gabriel under assumed surnames.
Sofia had planned to split the boys for safety.
Not choose Roman over them.
Declan exhaled.
“Good.”
Gabriel said, “You thought she liked him more.”
“I did not.”
“You absolutely did.”
Roman ignored them.
The suitcase also held a legal petition.
Sofia intended to separate from Carlo.
She sought temporary custody and protective orders.
Maeve looked at Roman.
“Your mother was leaving your father.”
“Yes.”
The romantic version of the Falcone marriage died quietly in that storage room.
Roman had spent years believing his parents were united until death.
Another simple story.
Wrong.
One letter explained why.
Carlo loved his sons. He also loved power more than peace.
Sofia wanted them out.
Kathleen agreed to help.
Vittorio discovered the plan because he monitored his brother’s finances and saw money moving into the Donnelly trust.
He believed Sofia was preparing to expose both men.
Maybe she was.
The suitcase did not answer everything.
It did answer the fourth chair.
Sofia’s note to Roman read:
You are the oldest by seven minutes and you think that means you must become whatever your father needs. The empty chair is for the version of you who chooses himself.
Roman folded the paper.
Maeve watched him.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Good answer.”
He looked at her.
She smiled.
That night Roman removed his father’s portrait from the main dining room.
Declan noticed.
“Where is it going?”
“Archive.”
Gabriel raised an eyebrow.
“Not burned?”
Maeve looked at Roman.
He said, “Evidence first.”
She smiled.
The next morning, he moved the fourth chair.
Not away.
To the table.
Maeve walked into breakfast and saw five places.
Three brothers.
Maeve.
Erin.
Roman looked embarrassed.
“It seemed stupid to keep a chair empty.”
Maeve sat.
“No.”
She looked around.
“It seemed lonely.”
Nobody argued.
The suitcase held one more letter, this one from Sofia to all three boys.
Roman nearly left it sealed.
Maeve said nothing.
Declan said, “Open it.”
Gabriel nodded.
Roman did.
My boys,
If you are reading this, something went wrong. Do not let your father teach you that fear is loyalty. Loyalty lets people tell you when you are becoming cruel. Fear only teaches them to smile while they hate you.
Declan looked at the floor.
Gabriel rubbed his eyes.
Roman read the next line.
Kathleen has permission to take you away from us if she believes staying will make you worse men.
Roman stopped.
Maeve felt the room change.
Sofia had trusted Kathleen not simply with their safety.
With their character.
Declan whispered, “She thought we might become him.”
Gabriel answered, “We did. A little.”
Roman folded the letter carefully.
“A lot.”
Maeve watched him choose the harder word.
That mattered.
Later, Roman put a copy of the letter beside the employee handbook draft on his desk.
Maeve noticed.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“You are terrible at nothing.”
She smiled.
“Maybe your mother finally got her policy manual.”
Erin asked a question nobody else had.
“Why did Sofia split the train tickets?”
Gabriel answered first.
“To make us harder to find.”
Roman shook his head.
“Also because we fought.”
Declan looked offended.
“We were fourteen.”
“You broke my nose.”
“You deserved it.”
Maeve stared.
“You are identical triplets. How did anyone know whose nose was broken?”
Erin laughed so hard she had to sit down.
For five minutes, the storage room stopped feeling like a crime scene.
The brothers argued about childhood.
Roman cheated at cards.
Gabriel hid books under his mattress.
Declan cried during thunderstorms and threatened death if anyone repeated it.
Maeve said, “Noted.”
Declan pointed at her.
“You value your life?”
“Yes. Which is why I know you’re not throwing a glass.”
He lowered his hand.
May you like
They all laughed.
The memory mattered because the boys Sofia tried to save had existed before the men everyone feared.
