Chapter 1 - The Question She Had Feared for Eight Years
Riona Mallister had imagined seeing Aldrich Ferrante again in a hundred different ways.
Never like this.
Never beneath stained glass and candlelight.
Never beside the coffin of the only Ferrante who had once quietly warned her that love inside powerful families came with doors that could lock from either side.
And never with her seven-year-old son standing between them.
The basilica had begun emptying only minutes earlier. Black coats moved slowly between wooden pews. White lilies framed the aisle. The low murmur of mourners rolled beneath the vaulted ceiling like distant weather.
Riona had been eight feet from freedom.
Eight feet.
She would remember that distance later.
Aldrich stood directly in her path.
He had changed.
Of course he had.
Eight years had sharpened him instead of softening him. At forty-two, there was a little gray near his temples and along his jaw, but everything else about him seemed carved from the same controlled force she remembered too well.
Black three-piece suit.
Black shirt.
Black tie.
Expression unreadable.
Except his eyes.
Those gray-green eyes had once been the safest place in her world.
Now they were fixed on her.
“Riona?”
Her name sounded almost unfamiliar in his voice.
Anel looked up at his mother.
Riona felt his fingers tighten around hers.
For one second, she considered lying.
Not about who she was. That was impossible.
About everything else.
She could say Anel belonged to someone in Vancouver.
She could say she had married.
She could say the resemblance was coincidence.
She could leave before Aldrich had time to think.
Then Aldrich looked down.
At Anel.
Everything changed.
Riona saw recognition happen not as a dramatic revelation but as a collection of tiny failures in Aldrich's control.
His shoulders became still.
His breathing slowed.
His eyes moved from the boy's dark hair to his face.
Then to his eyes.
Gray-green.
The exact shade Riona had spent seven years pretending belonged only to Anel.
Aldrich stared.
Anel stared back with the calm curiosity of a child who had no idea that simply existing had just overturned the balance of a powerful man's world.
Aldrich swallowed.
“How old is he?”
Riona had known this question would come if she failed to reach the door.
She had prepared answers during sleepless nights.
She had rehearsed lies.
But standing beneath the stained glass, with Cosmo's funeral flowers only yards away, she discovered she did not have another lie left.
“Seven.”
Aldrich became perfectly still.
Eight years since she had disappeared.
Seven-year-old child.
There were calculations a man could refuse to make.
This was not one of them.
His gaze returned to her.
“Riona…”
She saw anger coming.
Then disbelief.
Then something worse.
Pain.
“Is he my son?”
Behind Aldrich, two men in dark suits abruptly found something interesting across the room.
They had heard him.
Riona hated that.
She stepped closer to Anel.
“This isn't the place.”
“That wasn't an answer.”
“Aldrich.”
“Is he?”
His voice remained low, but she knew him well enough to recognize the strain underneath it.
Anel looked between them.
“Mama?”
Riona immediately crouched beside him.
“Everything's okay.”
“Do you know him?”
She hesitated.
“Yes.”
Aldrich watched her.
Anel turned toward him.
“From before Vancouver?”
Riona closed her eyes for half a second.
Children remembered everything you wished they would forget.
“Yes.”
Aldrich's expression shifted.
“You've been in Vancouver?”
Riona stood.
“We're leaving.”
Aldrich moved aside.
For one hopeful heartbeat she thought he was actually going to let them pass.
Then he said, “I won't stop you.”
She looked at him suspiciously.
“But I want an answer.”
“Not here.”
“Then tell me where.”
“There is nowhere.”
His jaw tightened.
“There was nowhere for eight years?”
That hurt because she heard the accusation inside it.
She returned it with one of her own.
“There was nowhere the night you decided I was guilty before I finished one sentence.”
The words landed.
Aldrich's face changed.
Only slightly.
But enough.
Riona took Anel's hand.
She began walking toward the exit.
“Riona.”
She stopped but didn't turn.
Aldrich spoke quietly.
“Did you come for my grandfather?”
Her fingers tightened around Anel's.
“No.”
That answer surprised him.
She turned.
“I came because Cosmo sent me something three weeks before he died.”
Now Aldrich's attention changed completely.
“What?”
“A message.”
“My grandfather couldn't even hold a telephone three weeks ago.”
“He didn't send it then.”
Aldrich stared.
Riona reached inside her coat and withdrew a small folded card.
She had carried it from Vancouver.
No name.
No return address.
Only six handwritten words.
You were right. Come for the ledger.
Aldrich recognized the handwriting.
Riona saw it immediately.
“That's his.”
“Yes.”
“Where did you get this?”
“It was delivered to my office.”
“What ledger?”
“If I knew, I wouldn't be here.”
His gaze moved toward the coffin at the front of the church.
For the first time since confronting her, he looked unsettled for a reason that had nothing to do with Anel.
Riona lowered her voice.
“Cosmo knew something about what happened eight years ago.”
Aldrich looked back at her.
“You think my grandfather knew about Roland's evidence?”
“I think your grandfather knew it was false.”
Aldrich stared at her.
The name Roland Vain seemed to alter the air between them.
Eight years earlier, Roland had been Aldrich's most trusted strategist.
The man who had placed the folder on Aldrich's desk.
Bank transfers.
Photographs.
Copied messages.
Enough evidence to make it appear Riona had been passing Ferrante information to a rival organization.
She had denied everything.
Aldrich had asked one devastating question.
Why should I believe you?
Riona had left the room before dawn.
By sunset, she had left Montreal.
By the time she discovered she was pregnant three weeks later, she had already decided that Aldrich Ferrante would never be allowed to make her child feel the way he had made her feel in that office.
Disposable.
Anel tugged her sleeve.
“Mama, can we go?”
“Yes.”
Aldrich's eyes softened when he looked at the boy.
The tenderness hurt Riona more than anger would have.
“What's his name?”
She hesitated.
“Anel.”
Aldrich repeated it quietly.
“Anel.”
The boy gave him a small nod.
“Hello.”
Aldrich almost smiled.
“Hello.”
Then Anel asked the one question Riona wasn't prepared for.
“Were you Mama's friend?”
Silence.
Aldrich looked at Riona.
“A long time ago.”
Anel studied him.
“You look sad.”
Riona nearly stopped breathing.
Aldrich crouched slightly so he was closer to the boy's height.
“I suppose today is a sad day.”
“Because your grandfather died?”
“Yes.”
“My mom knew him.”
“I know.”
“She said he was trying to be nice.”
Aldrich's eyes lifted sharply toward Riona.
She looked away.
Anel continued innocently.
“Were you trying too?”
That one landed harder.
Aldrich took a slow breath.
“I think I should've tried harder.”
Riona couldn't stay another second.
She guided Anel toward the doors.
Outside, November air struck her face.
They descended the basilica steps into Old Montreal.
She expected Aldrich to follow.
He didn't.
That worried her more.
Because the Aldrich she had known never chased when he could predict where someone was going.
“Mama?”
“Yes?”
“Is he my dad?”
Riona stopped on the sidewalk.
Traffic moved beyond the stone buildings.
People passed them beneath gray skies.
She looked down at her son.
His face was serious.
Too serious for seven.
“Why would you ask that?”
“His eyes.”
Her heart sank.
“What about them?”
“They look like mine.”
Children.
They always found the shortest road to the truth adults spent years building walls around.
Riona crouched.
“There are things I need to explain to you.”
“So he is?”
She couldn't do this on the sidewalk.
“Not here.”
Anel looked back toward the basilica.
Through the open doors, Aldrich was still standing exactly where they had left him.
Watching.
Riona rose quickly.
“Come on.”
Her rental car was two blocks away.
She had almost reached the corner when someone called her name.
Not Aldrich.
A different voice.
Older.
“Miss Mallister.”
Riona froze.
A thin man in a charcoal coat approached from beside a parked sedan.
She recognized him after several seconds.
Nathaniel Price.
Cosmo Ferrante's attorney.
He had aged dramatically.
But his cautious eyes were the same.
“Mr. Price.”
“I was hoping you would attend.”
“How did you know?”
“Mr. Ferrante told me you would.”
Riona stared.
“Cosmo?”
Price nodded.
“Before his condition worsened.”
A cold feeling spread through her.
“What do you want?”
“To give you this.”
He extended a sealed envelope.
Her name was written across the front.
Riona Mallister.
Again, Cosmo's handwriting.
She took it.
Price glanced toward the basilica.
“We should not speak here.”
“Why?”
“Because several people present today would prefer that envelope never be opened.”
Riona looked down at it.
“What is it?”
“I don't know.”
“You're his lawyer.”
“He required me to keep it sealed.”
“When?”
“Seven years ago.”
Riona looked up sharply.
“Seven?”
Price nodded.
“Shortly after you disappeared.”
Aldrich emerged from the basilica.
He saw them.
Price immediately stepped backward.
“I should go.”
“Wait.”
Price gave Riona one final look.
“Whatever Cosmo told you to find, don't assume the person who hid it is the person you're afraid of.”
Then he walked away.
Aldrich crossed the street toward her.
Riona opened the envelope before he reached them.
Inside was a single brass key.
And another message.
This one made her blood run cold.
Riona—if Aldrich is standing beside you when you read this, then I am dead, and you have finally brought my great-grandson home.
She stopped breathing.
Aldrich reached her.
“What does it say?”
Riona couldn't answer.
Because beneath the first line Cosmo had written one more sentence.
Do not trust Roland. But more importantly, do not trust the person who made Roland do it.
And below that was a name.
A name Riona knew.
A name Aldrich trusted completely.
She folded the note before he could see it.
For the first time in eight years, Riona understood something terrifying.
Roland Vain had never been the person she needed to fear.
He had only been following orders.
May you like
And Cosmo had just told her who gave them.
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