Chapter 5
Marianne Mercer was sixty-eight and living in Rhode Island.
Julian had been told she died before he was born.
Simple lie.
Effective.
Victor called it protection.
I was beginning to hate that word.
“Protection from what?”
Victor stared at me.
“A confused woman who could not accept a decision.”
Sofia’s fingers tightened around the blanket.
There.
Same pattern.
Resist family arrangement.
Become unstable.
I looked at Bianca.
“Did you meet Marianne?”
“Once.”
“When?”
“Seven years ago.”
Julian stared at her.
She looked ashamed.
Marianne came to the Mercer estate after Victor’s wife died.
Asked to see Julian.
Victor refused.
Bianca met her at the gate.
“She gave me a photograph.”
“What photograph?”
Bianca looked toward her purse.
One of my guards brought it.
Old.
Two newborn boys wrapped in matching blankets.
On the back, one handwritten line:
MY SONS. BOTH OF THEM.
Julian stared.
His entire face changed.
Victor snapped:
“She had thirty-six years to build a fantasy.”
Julian looked up.
“No.”
His voice was quiet now.
“She had thirty-six years because you kept me.”
Victor flinched.
Good.
I looked at Sofia.
She had gone pale again.
Too much.
I stepped toward Julian.
“This ends for now.”
He looked at me.
“I need—”
“My daughter just gave birth to three children.”
Silence.
“Your identity crisis does not become another thing she has to carry today.”
That hurt.
Necessary.
Julian looked toward Sofia.
She did not rescue him.
Good.
I continued.
“You can learn about Marianne.”
Pause.
“You can be angry.”
Another pause.
“But first you explain why knowing this tradition existed made you willing to repeat it.”
Julian’s face hardened.
He looked at Victor.
Then at Bianca.
Finally Sofia.
“I thought it proved family could survive it.”
Sofia’s eyes filled.
“No.”
Her voice shook.
“It proved the person taken might survive it.”
Silence.
That was the distinction.
Survival had become evidence the cruelty worked.
Victor’s favorite logic.
Julian had inherited it.
Not through blood.
Through teaching.
I looked at him.
“You were the stolen baby.”
May you like
He closed his eyes.
“And somehow they convinced you that made stealing one of yours reasonable.”
