Chapter Five: The Mother Clause

Ava had never driven to her mother’s place this fast in her life.

She barely registered the route, the blur of street signs, the feel of her hands on the wheel, or the silence sitting thick between her and Luca in the passenger seat. Her thoughts were too loud. Her pulse was too fast.

All she could hear was her voice repeating:

What did she hide? What did she sign away?

They pulled up to the small two-story house in Queens where Ava had grown up, still painted in the same pale gray, still trimmed with the same flowers Naomi planted every spring. The house looked unchanged.

But Ava wasn’t the same girl walking through that front door anymore.

Naomi opened it before Ava could knock.

She wore an old sweater and soft slippers, her curls pulled into a bun, eyes sharp with concern the moment she saw them.

“Ava,” she said. “Is everything okay?”

“No,” Ava said, pushing inside. “We need to talk. Now.”

Naomi’s gaze flicked to Luca.

“He’s with me,” Ava added. “And you’re going to tell me the truth. All of it.”

Naomi didn’t ask questions. Just nodded, moved aside, and led them to the kitchen table the same one Ava had done homework on, cried on, eaten takeout with her mother after long days. It had always been a place of honesty.

Until now.

Ava sat. Luca stood behind her, arms folded, silent but present.

Naomi lowered herself into the chair across from her daughter.

“I know,” Naomi said softly, “that this is about the past.”

Ava didn’t blink. “You signed an NDA with Gabriel Hart.”

Naomi looked down. Her lips tightened. “Yes.”

“You were paid to stay silent,” Ava continued. “Three hundred thousand dollars. Medical files. Psychiatric records. A facility I don’t remember. A program I never understood. Tell me what happened.”

Naomi looked up. Her eyes were wet, but her voice was steady.

“You don’t remember because they made sure you wouldn’t.”

Ava’s breath caught.

“You were part of a mentorship program that year. One Hart & Co. funded. I didn’t know I didn’t know what they were doing behind the scenes. What Gabriel was planning.”

Naomi’s voice broke slightly.

“He picked you. Told the organizers you were special. Bright. He wanted to sponsor you privately, open doors, and give you a future. I was a single mother, Ava. I believed him.”

Ava’s hands curled into fists.

“The night of the event,” Naomi continued, “you came home shaken. You said something happened that made no sense. You were scared. Crying. And then, the next day you couldn’t remember any of it.”

“They drugged me.”

Naomi nodded, pain etched across her face. “Yes. I think so.”

“Why didn’t you go to the police?”

“I tried,” she whispered. “But by then, men in suits had already shown up at our house. They brought paperwork. They said it was a misunderstanding. That your breakdown had nothing to do with them. And if I kept pushing, they’d take you away for more ‘observation.’”

Naomi looked at Ava through tears. “They said you were unstable. That you needed monitoring. I was afraid. I thought if I signed it all away, I could protect you from being taken.”

Luca didn’t move behind her, but Ava could feel the tension radiating off him.

She swallowed hard. “You let them erase me.”

“I was trying to save you.”

“No,” Ava said quietly. “You were trying to save yourself from the guilt.”

Naomi’s shoulders dropped like the weight of seventeen years had just finally landed.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I should’ve fought harder.”

A long silence settled over the room. Then Luca stepped forward.

“Do you remember the name of anyone else involved?” he asked. “Anyone who worked for Gabriel directly?”

Naomi nodded slowly. “There was a man. His name was”

BANG.

The glass shattered as the front window exploded.

Ava screamed, diving to the floor.

Luca was already moving, covering her with his body, pulling her behind the kitchen island.

Naomi ducked under the table, trembling.

More glass shattered down the hallway.

Luca grabbed his phone, already dialing.

“Secure unit. Hart protocol. We’ve got a breach.”

Ava’s heart pounded against the floor. Not because of the glass.

Because she knew what this was.

They’d been warned.

They were getting too close.

Outside, a black SUV peeled away from the curb.

Inside it, someone watched the footage from Ava’s office again.

Paused it on her face.

Zoomed in.

Then whispered into a burner phone:

“She remembers more than she’s saying. It’s time to pull the file.”

A pause.

Then

“If she won’t break, we’ll break him.”

The front window was nothing but shattered glass and splintered wood. Cold air rushed in through the hole, carrying dust, street noise, and the sharp metallic smell of something that didn’t belong.

Ava’s ears rang. Her heart was still hammering.

She stayed low behind the kitchen island, barely breathing, while Luca moved with a kind of precision she hadn’t seen before, not just confident, but trained. He wasn’t panicking. He was executing.

He barked a low string of commands into his phone, switching from calm billionaire to something much colder.

“Two shots through the window. No visible target. No return fire. Pull traffic cams from the intersection and sweep Naomi Sinclair’s house. Secure the perimeter, then extract.”

Ava reached for her mother, who was still shaking under the table.

“Mom, are you hit?”

Naomi shook her head. “No. Just just glass. I’m okay.”

Ava turned to Luca. “This wasn’t random.”

“No,” he said. “It was a warning.”

Ava stood slowly, her muscles tight, her hands still trembling as she stared at the broken glass and the kitchen wall, where a single bullet had lodged itself right above the family photo that used to hang there.

Her mother’s face. Her childhood face. Her entire life cracked around the edges.

“Someone is watching every move we make,” she said, her voice low.

Luca nodded. “And they just proved they’re not afraid to get physical.”

Ava turned to him. “This isn’t just about a memory. This is about something real. Something that still matters. Right now.”

Luca met her eyes. “They’re escalating. Which means we’re getting closer.”

“Closer to what?”

“To whatever Gabriel Hart was covering up.”

Naomi finally found her voice. “You need to leave,” she said. “Both of you. If they think I know anything, they won’t stop with a window.”

Ava shook her head. “You’re not staying here alone.”

“I’ll have someone on her by nightfall,” Luca said. “But she’s right. You’re the target now, Ava. And if you’re in the open, you’re a liability to yourself and everyone around you.”

She hated that he was right. She hated it even more that this was no longer a puzzle, it was a trap, and someone had just let her know they were tired of waiting.

As sirens wailed in the distance, Ava turned back to her mom.

“You will tell me everything you remember. Every face. Every name. Everything you buried.”

Naomi nodded, eyes wet.

“I will.”

Luca’s security team arrived minutes later, men in dark suits and earpieces, already sweeping the block before the NYPD even showed up.

Ava watched it all from the sidewalk.

“Do you think they’re watching right now?” she asked.

Luca stepped up beside her. “I’m counting on it.”

She turned to him. “Why?”

He looked at her. “Because if they see you’re not backing down, they’ll make a mistake.”

“And if they don’t?”

“Then I will make one for them.”

As the last of the team cleared the house, Luca’s second phone buzzed.

Private line.

No caller ID.

He answered, expecting a status update.

Instead, a distorted voice spoke:

“Your father made one mistake, Luca. He left something behind.”

A pause.

“And now that thing is standing next to you.”

Luca turned, eyes locking on Ava.

But the line was already dead.

Luca stared at the dead phone in his hand, the words echoing in his head like a shot fired at close range.

“He left something behind. And now that thing is standing next to you.”

It wasn’t a riddle. It was a message.

Ava.

They were talking about her.

She stood a few feet away, arms crossed, jaw set in that same way he’d seen in boardrooms, in arguments, in the glare she gave him the first time she told him no. But this was different.

Now she wasn’t just fighting him.

She was fighting to understand who she was.

Luca tucked the phone into his coat pocket.

Ava looked over. “Bad news?”

He considered lying.

Didn’t.

“It was them,” he said. “Or someone connected. They know we’re together.”

“And?”

“They said my father left something behind.”

She waited.

“And they think it’s you.”

Ava’s eyes narrowed. “Meaning what? I’m some kind of loose end?”

“They didn’t say.”

Ava let out a bitter laugh. “Of course not. Because it’s all cryptic threats and memory games. Always just enough to keep me off balance, but never enough to tell me why.”

She looked up at him, and for just a second, he saw the crack beneath her steel.

“I didn’t ask to be part of your father’s mess.”

Luca didn’t look away. “Neither did I.”

Silence stretched between them. Not cold, not tense. Just full. Heavy with things they hadn’t said and things they didn’t know how to.

Finally, Ava broke it.

“So what now?”

“We dig,” he said. “We stop reacting and start pulling every file, every name, every piece of my father’s legacy apart until we find what he did to you and why.”

“And if we don’t like the answer?”

“We deal with it,” Luca said. “Together.”

Ava didn’t answer right away.

Then, quietly: “You still trust me?”

He looked at her like that wasn’t even a question. “I never stopped.”

Inside the SUV that had been watching them from down the street, the same gloved figure tapped at a laptop.

Footage played back stepping out of the house, Luca at her side.

They paused it on her face.

Zoomed in.

Behind the screen, a low voice muttered:

“She’s not just a witness.”

A longer pause.

“She’s a liability. One that should’ve been erased years ago.”

A click.

Then a red button marked “PHASE TWO” blinked once

And turned green.