Chapter 8
Samuel told me how my mother disappeared.
Not the version Helena gave.
The real one.
Isabella had summoned five senior captains six years earlier.
She intended to reveal Daniel’s death, the forged orders, and the second family structure Helena had built.
Samuel learned about the meeting first.
He told Helena.
I stared.
“You warned her.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He swallowed.
“Because she told me Isabella planned to remove both of us.”
“And?”
“I believed her.”
Simple.
Ugly.
Honest.
Helena arranged a family dinner before Isabella’s meeting.
My mother’s wine was drugged.
She collapsed.
A trusted physician from Helena’s branch declared the condition fatal.
I remembered that man.
Dr. Hale.
Dead now.
Convenient.
“What about the body?”
Samuel looked sick.
Helena handled everything.
Closed coffin.
Immediate burial.
No viewing.
No questions.
Grief became the cover.
I had been twenty-three hours without sleep when they told me my mother was dead.
I signed nothing because Helena told me she would handle every detail.
Again.
Access.
Translation.
Control.
“What happened after the funeral?”
“They moved Isabella to the west staff apartment.”
“Why keep her alive?”
Samuel looked at Helena.
She answered herself.
“The seal.”
Of course.
“You tortured her for it?”
“No.”
My mother’s voice came from the doorway.
We all turned.
Isabella stood there with Rafe.
She looked stronger.
Not strong.
Stronger.
Helena stared.
My mother continued.
“She did something smarter.”
I stood to help her.
Isabella refused my arm.
She walked to the table herself.
“She brought Alessandro’s voice.”
I froze.
“What?”
Helena looked away.
Isabella sat.
“She recorded you.”
My stomach turned.
Old conversations.
Arguments.
Statements pulled apart and rearranged.
Helena played pieces through the locked door.
My voice saying:
“I can’t keep cleaning up her paranoia.”
Another:
“Maybe peace would be easier without her.”
I remembered those conversations.
About entirely different situations.
Helena repurposed them.
Made Isabella believe I had accepted her death.
My mother looked at me.
“I knew logically it didn’t make sense.”
Her voice shook.
“But years make bad lies heavier.”
I could not speak.
She continued.
“Eventually I stopped shouting when I heard your footsteps upstairs.”
That sentence broke something in me.
My mother had heard me living above her.
And at some point, she stopped calling because Helena convinced her I would not come.
I looked at my aunt.
She met my eyes.
May you like
“Words work better than chains.”
I had never hated anyone more calmly.
