Chapter 3
Diane blamed the staff.
Then Connor.
Then Grace.
Never herself.
“Children hear things.”
“From whom?”
“Anyone.”
“Name one person.”
She smiled.
“You want me to sacrifice a servant because your child remembers a phrase?”
Sabrina laughed.
“Natalie always liked pretty answers.”
I turned.
“What does that mean?”
“That Daniel wasn’t the saint you made him.”
Diane warned her.
“Sabrina.”
My sister ignored her.
“He wanted you away from Mother.”
“That was his crime?”
“He wanted you weak.”
“No. He wanted me independent.”
Diane’s jaw tightened.
To her, those were the same thing.
Connor opened another recording.
Diane’s private sitting room.
Elias was visible now.
Gray hair.
Eagle signet.
Whiskey in his hand.
“You promised Natalie still uses Rose Gate.”
Sabrina answered:
“She does.”
Elias asked:
“Does she know you changed Daniel’s route that night?”
Silence.
On-screen, Diane lifted her glass.
“She knows what she was told.”
Connor stopped the video.
I stared at my mother.
Daniel’s convoy route had changed thirty-two minutes before he died.
I had been told he ordered it himself.
“Did you change it?”
Diane sighed.
“Oh, Natalie.”
“Answer me.”
“Daniel was difficult.”
“Did you change the route?”
“He refused to understand his place.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
Sabrina looked at the ground.
I continued.
“Did you send him to Rose Gate?”
Diane’s face remained calm.
“Yes.”
One word.
Two years of grief cracked open.
“Why?”
“To speak with Elias.”
“About?”
“You.”
Of course.
Everything always returned to control.
Diane leaned toward me.
“Daniel thought being your husband gave him permission to dismantle everything I built.”
“He encouraged me to make my own decisions.”
“Exactly.”
She genuinely thought she had proved her point.
I turned to my captain.
“Bring Paul Mercer.”
Diane frowned.
“Daniel’s driver?”
“Yes.”
“What for?”
“He told me Daniel changed the route himself.”
My mother smiled thinly.
“And you believed him.”
I stared.
That sentence told me Paul had lied.
May you like
Worse—
Diane had always known I had been lied to.
