Chapter 6: The Meeting

My heart made a sound I didn’t know it could make.

He asked to meet me.

Not send a message. Not watch from afar. Not play some ghost game from the shadows.

He wanted to see me.

My real father.

The man with the scar on his lip and the truth buried somewhere behind those cold eyes.

“When?” I asked.

Matteo didn’t look at me right away. He stared past me, through the window, like the answer was somewhere in the trees or the clouds or the quiet spaces in between.

“Tomorrow,” he said. “Ten a.m. You’ll be driven there.”

I blinked. “And you’re letting me go?”

He finally looked at me.

“I don’t want you to. But I won’t stop you.”

That didn’t feel like permission.

That felt like surrender.

“Where?”

“A neutral location. Old estate outside town. Used to belong to the Aragon family. He’s repurposed it.”

I nodded slowly, even though nothing made sense anymore.

“What’s the catch?”

“There’s always a catch,” he said. “But you’ll have to figure that out yourself.”

I wanted to scream.

To throw something. To drag the truth out of him like a confession under fire.

But instead, I stood.

And for a second, he looked almost… afraid for me.

Not of me. For me.

“I’ll be ready,” I said, even though I wasn’t.

Not even close.

That night, I didn’t sleep.

I lay there with my eyes open, listening to the house breathe. The way the floor creaked. The way the walls sighed. The way the wind hit the glass like it wanted in.

I thought about my mother. Her voice. Her strength. Her lies.

I thought about Rafael. His name. His face. His disappearance.

And I thought about Matteo.

The way he said “I stayed.”

Like it meant more than blood.

Like it meant love.

By morning, I felt hollow. But at least the fear had dulled into something I could carry without choking on it.

A black car waited outside.

Same driver as before. Same cold professionalism. No words. Just a nod and an open door.

I didn’t ask questions.

I didn’t look back.

The road stretched long and empty. No music. No distractions. Just the sound of tires on asphalt and my thoughts unraveling at the edges.

When the gates finally appeared—tall, iron, draped in vines—I almost laughed.

Of course it would be beautiful.

Of course it would be haunting.

Everything in this world came dressed like a ghost.

The car stopped in front of a mansion that looked like it had been frozen in time. Columns. Stone. Ivy swallowing the edges like nature had tried to reclaim it and failed.

A man waited at the steps.

Not Rafael.

Another guard, maybe. Young. Scar above his brow. Eyes like bullets.

He nodded once. “Miss Santos.”

I followed him inside.

The house smelled like citrus and smoke. Not fresh. Not foul. Just… old money and older secrets.

He led me down a hall, past rooms that whispered behind closed doors, until we stopped in front of a library.

Of course.

Because this story started with pages and it would bleed through them too.

“He’s inside,” the man said.

Then he left me alone.

I stared at the door for a second too long.

And then I pushed it open.

He stood at the far end, near a tall window, holding a glass of something amber and expensive. He didn’t turn when I walked in.

But he knew I was there.

“I was starting to think you wouldn’t come,” he said.

His voice was deeper than I expected. Rough around the edges. Like gravel and old promises.

“I almost didn’t,” I said quietly.

“Then why did you?”

I closed the door behind me.

“Because I needed to see the man my mother kept running from.”

That made him turn.

Rafael Aragon.

He didn’t look like a villain.

He didn’t look like a savior either.

He looked like a man who’d lost too many things and wore every one of them in the lines of his face.

“You look like her,” he said.

I stayed by the door. “Don’t say that.”

“Why not?”

“Because you don’t get to talk about her like you knew her. You left.”

He walked slowly toward the desk. Not close. Just enough that I could see the truth in his eyes.

“I never stopped watching.”

“That’s not the same.”

“No,” he said. “It’s not.”

Silence dropped between us like a blade.

“You knew Matteo,” I said.

“Yes.”

“You were close.”

He gave a tight smile. “He was a boy when I met him. Reckless. Brave. Stupid. Reminded me of myself.”

“And then?”

“Then I made choices. And he made different ones.”

I stepped further into the room.

“What kind of choices get people killed?”

He didn’t flinch.

“The kind that feel right at the time. The kind you think are for the greater good.”

“And were they?”

“No,” he said simply. “But by the time I realized that, it was already done.”

I swallowed hard.

“My mother loved you.”

His jaw clenched. Just barely.

“I loved her too.”

“Then why did she leave?”

“She didn’t,” he said. “I told her to go. To run. I was already marked. I thought if she disappeared with you, you’d both be safe.”

“And we were?”

He looked down.

“I watched your fifth birthday from a car three blocks away. I saw your graduation through a camera lens. Every time I got too close, someone died.”

I shook my head. “You sound like a ghost story.”

“Maybe I am,” he said.

He walked to the bookshelf. Pulled something from behind a row of old volumes.

A small box.

He held it out.

I didn’t take it.

“What is it?”

“Proof.”

“Of what?”

“That your mother wasn’t lying. That I didn’t abandon you. That this world chose our fate before we ever got a chance to write our own.”

I hesitated.

Then I took it.

Inside were papers. Letters. Photos. A video file on a flash drive.

Everything my mother never said.

Everything Matteo never admitted.

I stared at it, heart pounding.

“Why now?” I whispered.

“Because they’ll come for you soon,” Rafael said. “The people who believe you’re a threat.”

“To what?”

“The truth.”

I looked at him.

Really looked.

And suddenly, he wasn’t the ghost anymore.

He was the warning.

“What do they want?”

“To erase you. To erase her. To rewrite what really happened.”

“And you?”

“I want to stop them.”

Silence again.

But this one didn’t cut.

It held.

“What if I don’t believe you?” I asked.

He smiled softly. Sadly.

“Then at least you heard my side.”

The door opened behind me.

I turned.

Matteo stood there.

Tense. Angry. Scared.

“You’ve said enough,” he told Rafael.

“I said what she needed to hear,” Rafael replied.

I looked between them.

Two men. Two truths. Two sides of a war I never asked to be in.

And I was the line between them.

“I’m going back,” I said to no one in particular.

Neither of them stopped me.

Neither of them could.

The ride back was quiet again. But this time, the silence didn’t feel empty.

It felt full.

Heavy with what I now knew.

The box sat on my lap, warm from my hands, colder than everything else.

When we reached the estate, Matteo didn’t follow me inside. He stayed by the car. Watching. Waiting.

I didn’t look back.

I went straight to my room.

Locked the door.

Opened the box again.

And as I read, watched, listened…

I realized something that hurt more than anything else.

Everyone was telling the truth.

Just not all of it.

And the rest?

That was up to me.

To find.

To carry.

To survive.

Because now, I wasn’t just a girl in a stranger’s house.

I was the daughter of two ghosts.

And everyone wanted to decide what that meant.

But they forgot something.

I get to choose too.

And I wasn’t going to choose silence.

Not anymore.

End of Chapter 6