Chapter 45

Chapter 45 — Her Shadows

Victor didn’t sit. He leaned against the potting table, eyes on the wilting petals of the orchid he’d trimmed minutes ago. It felt like time had stopped moving in this room. The rain outside kept falling, but neither of them could hear it now.

Isla waited. Not because she was patient—she wasn’t—but because she needed to hear the truth fall from his lips. Not written. Not hinted. Just spoken, like a confession he’d owed her all along.

“I met Elena when she was nineteen,” Victor finally said, voice low, worn thin with memory. “Your grandfather hired me for private security work. She hated me on sight.”

Isla folded her arms. “That doesn’t surprise me.”

Victor gave a faint smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “She called me arrogant. Said I had no business watching over her like she was some prize to be guarded. But she was already deep into things her family didn’t want to see.”

“Like what?” Isla asked.

“Politics. Rebellion. Secrets. Your mother was always drawn to fire.” He looked up then, meeting Isla’s gaze. “Maybe that’s why I fell for her. Or maybe I was just another secret she collected.”

Isla’s throat tightened. “Did she love you?”

Victor didn’t answer immediately. He reached for the kettle on the side table—cold now—and poured the last of the tea into a cup. He held it without drinking.

“She never said the words,” he murmured. “But she stayed. When she could’ve walked away. When it would've been safer.”

“And then?”

Victor’s fingers tensed around the cup. “Your grandfather found out. And when he did, everything fell apart. Elena was sent away. The letters came after that. Sporadically. Each one more guarded than the last.”

“Did you ever try to find her?”

“I tried,” he said. “More than once. But she had already married your father by then. The last letter I got was postmarked six months before you were born. That was the day I stopped chasing ghosts.”

Isla’s heart pounded against her ribs. “So you… you could be…”

“No.” Victor’s voice sharpened. “Don’t go there. Your father raised you. Whatever Elena and I had, it ended long before that.”

But doubt had already slipped into her bones.

“You don’t know that,” Isla said softly. “You don’t know for sure.”

“I know your mother,” Victor replied, and there was something in his tone—grief, reverence, maybe shame. “She would never have let me near you if you were mine.”

The words left Isla shaken. Her hands curled into fists at her sides. “But you let me fall for you.”

Victor’s eyes met hers. “I didn’t plan for this to happen.”

“Stop saying that!” Isla shouted, finally breaking. “You keep saying none of this was planned, like that makes it okay. Like it makes any of this less—less messed up!”

Victor stepped forward, but she backed away.

“I’m not your mother,” she said, voice trembling. “And I’m not a secret you get to keep.”

“I never wanted to keep you in the dark,” he said, quietly.

“Then why do I feel like I’ve been walking blind this whole time?” Isla whispered.

Victor didn’t answer. What could he say?

She looked at him—this man who had been her storm, her safe place, her mistake—and saw the weight he carried. It didn’t excuse him. But it made him human.

“Do you want me to hate you?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “But I think you should.”

The air hung heavy between them, thick with the kind of silence only heartbreak can carry.

Isla turned toward the door. “I’ll stay tonight,” she said. “Not for you. For me. I need time.”

Victor didn’t try to stop her. As she walked out into the corridor, the old floor creaked beneath her steps—like even the house was protesting.

She passed the mirror in the hall and caught a glimpse of herself—pale, wild-eyed, broken. She didn’t recognize the woman staring back.

Upstairs, in her childhood room, she finally allowed herself to cry. Not pretty tears. Not soft. Just raw grief for the past, for her mother’s hidden life, for the love she thought she’d found but now feared might’ve been borrowed.

She curled beneath the old quilt, clutching the letter like it might answer the ache in her chest.

And outside, the rain kept falling.