Chapter 8 - The Mafia Boss Who Came Looking for His Son
We left Maine before sunrise.
Graham refused to return to Chicago immediately.
Instead, he took us to a secluded property in Vermont owned through a company Sebastian didn't know existed.
Owen thought it was an adventure.
I knew better.
For three days, Graham worked constantly.
Phone calls.
Documents.
Meetings conducted behind closed doors.
But something unexpected happened between those meetings.
He became a father.
Badly at first.
He poured Owen orange juice into a coffee mug because he couldn't find the plastic cups.
He burned pancakes.
He discovered that five-year-olds ask questions without mercy.
“Why are you rich?”
“Work.”
“What work?”
“Companies.”
“What companies?”
“Several.”
“Why?”
Graham looked at me helplessly.
I laughed for the first time around him in years.
Owen loved it.
Later, I found Graham sitting on the floor building a wooden castle.
“You put that piece backward,” Owen informed him.
“I did not.”
“Yes.”
Graham examined it.
He had.
He silently fixed it.
Something painful moved through me.
This was what we'd lost.
Not because Graham couldn't love his son.
Because he had been too frightened to try.
That evening, Owen fell asleep against him during a movie.
Graham didn't move for almost an hour.
When I came to take Owen upstairs, Graham whispered, “Leave him.”
“He'll wake up with a stiff neck.”
“I don't care.”
“I suspect he will.”
But I sat beside them.
For a while, we were simply three people in a quiet room.
Then Graham said, “I called Vanessa.”
My warmth disappeared.
“Why?”
“She agreed to testify against Sebastian.”
“You trust her?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“She says Sebastian threatened her.”
“After she helped destroy our marriage?”
“Yes.”
I looked at Owen.
“I'm not interested in forgiving her.”
“Neither am I.”
“Or you.”
Graham absorbed that.
“I know.”
There it was again.
No defense.
No demand.
The man who had once treated every disagreement like a battle had finally stopped fighting the truth.
“Why didn't you visit Owen?”
His eyes remained on our son.
“Because every year I told myself staying away protected him.”
“And?”
“And every year it became harder to admit that wasn't the whole reason.”
“What was?”
“Shame.”
I stared at him.
He continued quietly.
“I knew what I did at the hospital.”
“You mean abandoning us?”
“Yes.”
“I knew there was no explanation that made it acceptable.”
“No.”
“So I convinced myself you were happier without me.”
“We were.”
The words hurt him.
I didn't take them back.
“But that doesn't mean Owen didn't need a father.”
Graham looked down.
“I know.”
His phone vibrated.
He answered.
Daniel.
The conversation lasted less than a minute.
Then Graham stood carefully without waking Owen.
“What?”
“Vanessa disappeared.”
“When?”
“Two hours ago.”
“Did Sebastian take her?”
“We don't know.”
Then Daniel sent a photograph.
Vanessa stood beside Sebastian outside a private airfield.
She wasn't restrained.
She wasn't frightened.
She was smiling.
Underneath, Vanessa had sent Graham one sentence:
You always were too easy to manipulate.
Graham stared at the message.
Then another arrived.
A photograph of the Vermont house.
Taken that morning.
We had been found.
May you like
Again.
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