Chapter 7
Emma met Claire the morning after she escaped.
Not four months later.
That corrected the timeline.
Claire had been using the diner from the beginning.
Sometimes she disappeared for weeks.
Then returned.
Different clothes.
Different car.
Never the same route twice.
“Why didn’t she come to me?” I asked.
Emma’s face softened.
“She wanted to.”
That hurt more than if she blamed me.
“Then why didn’t she?”
“Because Victor told her you knew.”
Silence.
I looked at him.
Victor did not move.
Emma continued.
“He told Claire the reserve crews were yours.”
My jaw tightened.
“He told her you were building them because you no longer trusted the regular capos.”
Victor finally spoke.
“She believed what she wanted.”
I looked at him.
Emma shook her head.
“No.”
Victor frowned.
“She believed him because he knew things only Daniel should know.”
That got my attention.
“What things?”
Private arguments.
A route change I made without council.
A financial favor I granted one capo quietly.
A sentence I said to Claire in our bedroom after Sophie’s fever.
Victor had heard too much.
Not because I told him everything.
Because he had built access everywhere.
Drivers.
House staff.
Security.
Ranch crews.
I looked at Marco.
“How much of my house did you report to him?”
His face tightened.
“Security.”
“No.”
“How much?”
He looked ashamed now.
“Most.”
There.
Claire did not stay away because she stopped trusting me.
She stayed away because Victor made it appear that I had already become him.
That was the cruelty.
He did not need to convince her I hated her.
Only that I had chosen power over honesty.
Emma looked at me.
“Claire said if she came back too soon and she was wrong about you, she’d die.”
I absorbed that.
“If she came back and she was right?”
Emma’s voice broke.
“Then she’d rather stay gone than bring your daughters into it.”
I looked at the babies sleeping beneath her cardigan.
May you like
Claire had vanished to protect them from a threat she believed might include me.
And Victor had spent four months standing beside me while I blamed her absence on fear.
