Chapter Eight

Cole’s Pov

I arrived outside The Grand Monarch almost twenty minutes before Sienna did.

The truck was parked across the street beneath the shade of a large oak tree, far enough away that nobody would pay attention to it but close enough for me to keep the restaurant entrance in clear view.

I hated that Eleanor had reached her first. Nate had warned me she was moving, and Victor had started digging. Nothing about this meeting was a coincidence.

I leaned back in my seat and checked my watch for what had to be the fiftieth time. One hour passed, then another, before the restaurant doors finally opened.

Sienna stepped outside first. She wasn’t crying, and she wasn’t angry, she simply looked lost, the kind of lost that came after hearing something capable of changing the way you saw your entire life. She stood motionless on the sidewalk with an envelope clutched tightly against her chest while my mother’s car disappeared into traffic.

I watched her remain there for several seconds before she slowly walked toward her own car. She didn’t notice me. She never had, not once in four years. That was intentional.

I waited until she pulled out of the parking lot before starting my engine, keeping three cars between us out of habit.

She drove in silence, both hands gripping the wheel. Whatever Eleanor had told her was already weighing on her. Even I had spent most of my life trying to understand my mother.

Eventually she turned into a quiet neighborhood lined with trees and modest houses. I slowed before following.

She pulled into the driveway, and the front door opened before she even switched off the engine. Then she appeared.

Ava.

She burst out of the house with the kind of energy only children seemed capable of possessing.

“Mummy!”

Even through the closed windows of my truck, I could almost hear the excitement in her voice. Sienna barely had time to close the car door before Ava launched herself into her arms.

My hands tightened around the steering wheel. God, she’d gotten bigger. The last photograph Priya had secretly shown me was almost six months old, and pictures had never prepared me for this. Her hair was longer now, and she’d grown taller. She laughed exactly the same way, head thrown back, completely free.

Sienna lifted her effortlessly before kissing the top of her head.

“What happened to my big girl?”

“I drew you something!”

“Did you?”

“Yes!”

Their voices drifted toward the street. I swallowed hard. She sounded so happy, so normal, exactly the childhood I’d spent years hoping she would have.

June appeared in the doorway carrying what looked like a grocery bag.

“We’re starving,” Ava announced.

June laughed. “Come inside before you starve completely.”

I couldn’t help it. A laugh escaped me before I could stop it, and it disappeared just as quickly. My daughter. My little girl. Standing barely thirty feet away, and I couldn’t even say hello.

I watched Sienna brush Ava’s hair away from her face before taking her small hand. The gesture was so natural, so gentle. That should have been me beside them, laughing with my daughter instead of watching from across the street like a stranger.

The front door closed behind them, and the house became quiet again. I remained parked across the street for five minutes, then ten, then fifteen. I couldn’t make myself leave.

Every instinct screamed at me to get out, to walk across the road, to knock on that door. To tell Sienna I was done hiding. That I wanted to know my daughter. That I would spend the rest of my life making up for every birthday I’d missed.

But promises didn’t erase danger. Victor wasn’t the only threat. Old enemies were still watching, and the second they found Ava, everything would change. Eleanor would protect her if she could.

I finally started the truck. The engine sounded painfully loud in the quiet neighborhood. As I drove away, I looked once in the rearview mirror and watched the little blue house disappear behind the trees. It felt like leaving them all over again.

************************

The cabin was silent when I returned. I tossed my keys onto the kitchen counter before walking upstairs. Sleep wasn’t happening tonight.

Instead I unlocked the old wooden chest sitting beneath the bed. Very few things inside actually belonged to me anymore—, worn leather wallet, some passports, a broken watch, several files, and one faded photograph.

I picked it up carefully. The edges had started curling with age, and the image was grainy because it had been printed from the hotel’s security archive years earlier. The date in the corner read exactly four years ago.

Sienna stood near the reception desk wearing one of the oversized white hotel robes. She was laughing, not posing, not looking at the camera, just laughing because I’d apparently said something ridiculous seconds before the image was captured. Half my shoulder appeared beside her, nothing more. We weren’t even looking at each other. It wasn’t a romantic photograph, and nobody else would understand why I’d kept it..

I traced my thumb gently across the photograph. “I’m sorry,” I whispered into the empty room. Sorry for disappearing. Sorry for every moment of Ava’s life I’d missed.

I couldn’t keep pretending distance was protecting everyone. Distance had become another prison, and I was getting tired of living inside it.

“I can’t stay hidden much longer.”

****************************

Across the city, Roman was already waiting.

Nate walked into Roman’s office without knocking. He looked entirely too relaxed for someone about to start a fight. Roman remained standing beside the windows overlooking the skyline.

“You wanted to see me.”

“I did.”

Roman turned around slowly. “You’ve been keeping things from me.”

Nate slipped both hands into his pockets. “Haven’t we all?”

Roman’s jaw tightened. “I’m not in the mood for jokes.”

“Neither am I.”

For a long moment, neither brother spoke. The silence between them felt unfamiliar.

Roman finally broke it. “You told Sienna about Cole.”

“I did.”

“Why?”

“Because she deserved the truth.”

“You had no right.”

Nate’s expression hardened. “I had every right.”

“No.” Roman stepped closer. “This isn’t your mess to clean up.”

“It became my mess the second everyone started lying.”

Roman exhaled sharply. “What else aren’t you telling me?”

Nate didn’t answer.

Roman watched him carefully. “You know where he is.”

Silence.

“Nate.”

Still nothing.

“You’ve been talking to him.”

Nate finally met his brother’s eyes. “I won’t answer that.”

Roman laughed once. It wasn’t amusement—it was frustration. “I’ve spent four years trying to find him.”

“And you’ve been standing here the entire time acting like you wanted the same thing.”

“I do.”

“Then help me.”

Nate shook his head. “I can’t.”

“You won’t.”

“I can’t.”

“There is a difference.”

Roman stared at him for several long seconds. “You’ve chosen him.”

Nate answered quietly. “No. I’ve chosen to keep him alive.”

The room fell completely silent.

Roman frowned. “What does that mean?”

Nate looked toward the window instead of answering. “It means there are things you still don’t know.”

Roman’s patience finally snapped, his voice rising for the first time in years. “Then stop saying it and tell me the truth.”

Nate didn’t flinch, didn’t raise his own voice, didn’t step back. Instead he simply looked at his older brother with something that almost resembled pity. “I wish I could.”

Roman’s fists clenched. “You don’t trust me.”

“That’s not the problem.”

“Then what is?”

Nate hesitated, because once spoken aloud, the truth could never be taken back. Finally he answered. “I don’t trust the people listening.”

Roman’s expression changed, confusion replacing anger. “What people?”

Nate glanced almost imperceptibly toward the security camera mounted in the corner of the office. Roman followed his gaze, then slowly looked back at his brother. Neither of them spoke.

But for the first time in years, Roman began to wonder if the biggest secret in the Calloway family wasn’t that Cole had disappeared. It was why he had never come home.