Chapter 13 - The Woman Who Never DiedI couldn't remember the journey back to the safehouse.
I remembered Clara in my arms, Grace sleeping beside a nurse, Elias speaking urgently to Luca, and a heavy silence settling over everyone whenever I entered a room.
Nathan had been taken into custody by officers Elias trusted, and the false ledger had already been delivered to investigators.
But none of that mattered.
My mother was dead.
I'd seen her body.
I'd attended her funeral.
I'd spent years visiting her grave.
And Nathan had looked me in the eyes and claimed she'd been alive all along.
I found Elias in his office shortly before sunrise.
“Tell me the truth.”
He closed the file in his hands.
“About your mother?”
“Yes.”
“I don't know if she's alive.”
“Then why did Nathan say that?”
“Because he wanted to frighten you. But he may have been referring to someone who possessed the second ledger.”
“Who?”
He hesitated.
“Your mother's sister.”
I stared at him.
“My mother never had a sister.”
“According to the records, she did. A woman named Margaret Bell, who disappeared around the time of the warehouse fire.”
“Why haven't I heard of her?”
“Your father may have concealed her identity to protect you.”
I sank into the chair opposite him.
Another hidden relative.
Another dead person who might not be dead.
Another secret tied to my father's final years.
“I can't live like this,” I whispered. “Every time I learn something, the entire past changes.”
Elias moved the file aside.
“Then stop trying to solve everything tonight.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because you have two newborn daughters who need their mother. Because you haven't slept properly in days. Because Nathan is in custody, his men are being questioned, and the evidence is reaching people he can't easily control.”
He leaned forward.
“You are allowed to breathe, Ava.”
I looked at him for a long moment.
Then I cried.
Not the quiet, frightened tears I'd shed on the pavement. These were ugly, exhausted tears that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than pain.
Elias didn't tell me to stop.
He didn't touch me until I reached for his hand.
Then he held it while I cried.
When I finally calmed down, he offered me a tissue and returned to the file.
“I received a message from Nathan's attorney.”
“What does he want?”
“An emergency hearing. His lawyers intend to argue that you are emotionally unstable and that I've been manipulating you.”
I gave a bitter laugh.
“Of course they do.”
“They'll also claim I abducted you and the children.”
“Can they prove it?”
“They can make the allegation. Whether it survives evidence is another matter.”
I looked toward the nursery.
“I want to testify.”
Elias studied me carefully.
“You'll face his lawyers. They'll examine your medical history, your marriage, your finances, your relationship with me. They'll try to make you angry, confused, or ashamed.”
“They've already done that.”
“Then understand that it may become worse before it becomes better.”
I stood.
“I will testify.”
He nodded once.
“Then we prepare.”
For the next six hours, I reviewed every document, every recording, every photograph recovered from the apartment. Dr. Ward helped reconstruct the timeline of my pregnancy. Luca tracked the money used to pay the doctor. Lawyers gathered evidence of the assault, the false medical transfer, and the attempt to kill me and my daughters.
At ten that morning, the district attorney confirmed that Nathan would face criminal charges.
At eleven, Eleanor Cross disappeared from her Manhattan residence.
At noon, a private jet registered to a shell company took off from Teterboro Airport.
And at one fifteen, I received a letter delivered by hand.
The envelope contained a photograph of my mother standing beside a woman I'd never seen.
On the back, someone had written:
YOUR MOTHER DIDN'T DIE. SHE CHOSE TO DISAPPEAR. IF YOU WANT THE TRUTH, COME TO THE OLD CHURCH ON DELANCEY STREET AT MIDNIGHT. COME WITHOUT VANCE.
A second photograph slipped from the envelope.
It showed the same church, taken that morning.
Someone was standing in the doorway.
An older woman with my mother's eyes.
I showed the photograph to Elias.
His expression darkened.
“It's a trap.”
“Maybe.”
“You won't go alone.”
“The letter specifically says not to bring you.”
“Which tells me whoever sent it knows exactly how to make you vulnerable.”
I looked at the photograph again.
My mother's eyes stared back at me.
For years, I'd prayed to see her one more time.
Now I had the chance.
“I need to know,” I whispered.
Elias didn't try to stop me.
But he made one condition.
“If you go, you wear a transmitter. My team remains outside. If anything feels wrong, you leave immediately.”
I nodded.
That night, I placed Clara and Grace in the care of Dr. Ward and entered a black car alone.
At midnight, I stepped inside the abandoned church.
A candle burned near the altar.
An older woman rose from the front pew.
She stared at me with trembling lips.
Then she whispered the name she'd called me when I was a child.
“Ava-bird.”
I stopped.
Only one person had ever called me that.
My mother.
She reached toward me.
May you like
And before I could take a single step, a gunshot shattered the stained-glass window above us.
My mother collapsed.
