Chapter 45

Chapter 45: The Echo of Hidden Truths

Isla stood in the middle of her mother’s old room, a strange scent of aged perfume and forgotten memories clinging to the walls. She hadn’t noticed the way the wooden floor creaked beneath her weight before, but now, each groan of the house sounded like a voice trying to speak to her from the past. The letters, the documents, the photograph of Victor Kane with her mother—it was all too much to ignore.

She unfolded another note she had found tucked in the lining of her mother’s jewelry box. This one was different. No date. No greeting. Just words, scrawled in trembling handwriting:

“You never stop loving the devil who made you feel alive. I’m sorry.”

Isla’s breath hitched. Her heart pounded.

Her mother wasn’t just afraid of Victor Kane—she had loved him. Or something close to it. Maybe it wasn’t love in the traditional sense. Maybe it was obsession. Desperation. An addiction to a man as dangerous as he was magnetic.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me, Mum?” Isla whispered.

The walls, of course, didn’t answer. But in her bones, Isla felt the weight of her mother’s choices pressing against her—choices Isla might be repeating.

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Christopher returned that evening, finding her curled up on the floor of the room, letters scattered around her. He said nothing at first, just quietly walked in and sat beside her, not even asking if she wanted him there. He simply was.

Finally, he spoke, voice low. “You found the letters.”

She nodded, not looking at him. “You knew?”

“I suspected,” he admitted. “There were always whispers. But I didn’t know how far it went… until I read one of the letters when I was a teenager. I thought it was just an old affair. But Victor was never just a man, was he?”

“No,” Isla said, voice trembling. “He wasn’t.”

They sat in silence for a long moment, broken only by the sound of a storm beginning to roll in outside. Thunder echoed like the past knocking at the door.

Christopher reached out and gently brushed his fingers against hers. “Isla, you don’t have to walk this path alone.”

But she pulled away. “I already have. And you can’t understand it—not really. You didn’t lose a mother to secrets. You didn’t grow up wondering why every man felt like a threat, why I kept dreaming of a name I didn’t even know—Victor.”

“Then help me understand,” he pleaded. “Let me carry some of it.”

She turned to him, her eyes tired, yet defiant. “I can’t trust anyone right now. Not with this.”

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That night, Isla couldn’t sleep. The letters were burned into her mind like fire on paper. She kept replaying her mother’s words—especially that last one: You never stop loving the devil who made you feel alive.

Was that what she was doing with Christopher? With Victor?

Because lately, Victor’s name tasted different on her tongue. Not just as a man to fear—but as a force she felt bound to, like gravity. His control had reached into her mother’s life, and now, it was clawing at hers.

She got up, padded barefoot down to the library. The old safe Victor had once used still sat behind the faux bookshelf. She’d cracked it before. Maybe there was more.

Her fingers hesitated, then turned the dial: 1-9-8-7. Her mother’s birth year. A soft click.

Inside was a single envelope. Thicker than the rest. Sealed with wax. The initials burned into it: VK.

With shaking hands, Isla broke the seal.

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*“To Isla,

If you’re reading this, then the ghosts have finally found you. I never wanted you to inherit my sins, but blood calls blood. Victor was not just a man I loved. He was the beginning of everything I feared—and everything I longed for. He was the first man who ever made me feel seen. Not loved. Not safe. Seen.

You look like me. But I pray you don’t make the same choices. I left him, but he never really left me. And now, he’s watching you the way he once watched me.

Be careful. And remember: love and danger often wear the same mask.

—Mother.”*

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The letter slipped from her fingers. Her heart was hammering. Her hands cold.

Victor Kane hadn’t just haunted her mother’s life.

He was still watching.

And now, Isla knew—this wasn’t just about her past.

It was her future.

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