Chapter Eighty-Nine: Quiet Shadows

The car’s engine was a low hum beneath the quiet of the street, the soft dusk settling like a shroud over the neat houses lined with trimmed lawns and flowering shrubs. I sat behind the wheel, the leather cool under my fingers, eyes fixed on the modest house across the street, white picket fence, flower boxes under the windows, a small porch swing where a child’s jacket hung limp.

Marisol Vega’s home.

I had read everything I could find about her. The old files painted a stark, ruthless picture, a woman who once moved in the shadows of Robert’s empire, involved in whispers I couldn’t yet confirm, someone who might have played a part in the erasure of my father’s name. But here, under this softening light, the woman I saw was different.

Through the large living room window, I watched her move with easy grace, carrying a toddler in one arm, laughing as she handed a plate of food to another child at the table. Her hair was pulled back in a loose bun, the wrinkles near her eyes softened by