Chapter 4
Victor stood.
“You coward.”
Harlan ignored him.
That surprised me.
The man I remembered never ignored Victor.
He had served my father and uncle with almost religious obedience.
Now he looked tired.
Older than seventy.
Human.
I hated that.
Monsters are easier when they age into monsters.
“What did you tell them?” I asked.
Harlan looked at Celeste.
“The pond wasn’t mine.”
Victor scoffed.
“You designed the sequence.”
“I designed observation exercises.”
My eyes narrowed.
Harlan claimed he accepted Victor’s invitation because Victor told him I wanted a controlled resilience assessment for Owen.
He believed I had softened with age but finally wanted advice.
He arrived.
Saw the child was three.
Refused immediately.
Victor changed the request.
Not formal training.
Just demonstrations.
Harlan agreed to one.
Dark room.
Door unlocked.
Harlan sat inside with Owen.
That differed from what I had been told.
I looked at Celeste.
Her face tightened.
“Were you inside?”
Harlan nodded.
“The entire time.”
Owen cried for thirty seconds.
Then Harlan turned on a flashlight and they counted plant pots.
Not good.
Still unauthorized.
But not the terror Victor described proudly.
Second lesson?
Harlan refused.
Victor continued without him.
The alarm recording came from Victor’s staff.
Masks?
Celeste.
Cold?
Victor.
Silence?
Both.
Harlan discovered the escalation two weeks ago.
Told them to stop.
They did not.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
He looked ashamed.
“You banned me.”
Fair.
“And?”
“Victor said if I contacted you, he would say the entire program was mine.”
There.
The old trainer afraid of being blamed for training.
Irony.
“Would that stop you?”
“Thirty years ago? No.”
He looked toward the floor.
“Now I know what I did to children.”
I felt nothing resembling forgiveness.
Good.
Remorse is information, not absolution.
Harlan continued.
Yesterday he came to the conservatory to confront Victor personally.
That was why the visitor badge existed.
Then he overheard something worse.
Celeste and Victor discussing the koi pond.
Not as training.
As proof.
“Proof of what?”
Harlan looked at my uncle.
“That Valentina Morello has become too weak to lead because motherhood controls her.”
Silence.
There it was.
May you like
Owen had not been the test.
I had.
