Chapter 4
Sabine Voss was Gideon’s older sister.
I remembered her vaguely.
Elegant.
Sharp.
Always furious that her younger brother rose higher in the family than she ever could.
After Gideon disappeared, Sabine took Marina and her mother west.
Then rewrote the story.
Winterbourne had murdered Gideon.
Eleanor Winterbourne had lured him into a trap.
Rafferty’s father had ordered it.
The entire family wanted the Voss name erased.
Marina grew up on that version.
“What happened to your mother?”
I asked.
“Cancer. I was nineteen.”
“And Sabine?”
“Raised me after.”
Of course.
Mother asked quietly:
“What did she tell you about me?”
Marina laughed bitterly.
“That you watched my father die.”
Mother closed her eyes.
Pain.
Not guilt.
Something older.
“No.”
Marina stared.
“She said you took his ring.”
Mother looked toward me.
Then rose slowly.
“Wait.”
She left the room.
Returned ten minutes later carrying a small wooden box.
No velvet.
No ceremony.
Inside was a heavy black signet ring marked with a silver V.
Marina stopped breathing.
“My father’s.”
“Yes.”
“You did take it.”
“He gave it to me.”
Mother turned the ring over.
Inside the band were three scratched letters.
M.R.V.
Marina Rose Voss.
Delphina reached toward it.
Then stopped before touching.
Mother placed it in her palm.
“Gideon gave me that the night he left.”
Marina’s fingers closed around it.
“He said if I ever found you, I should give it back only after saying one sentence.”
Mother’s voice softened.
“He did not leave because he stopped loving you.”
Marina broke.
Not gracefully.
She sat hard in the nearest chair and covered her mouth.
For years she had believed abandonment.
Then murder.
Hatred had given grief structure.
Now the structure was collapsing.
I should have felt sympathy first.
I did feel some.
May you like
But I also remembered my mother inside an iron cage.
Understanding did not erase the present.
