Chapter 4 - The Truth They Buried
I left the Vale mansion before midnight.
Not because Adrian asked me to.
Because I could no longer breathe inside it.
The photographs. The locked drawers. The lies hidden behind polished furniture and family portraits—it was too much.
Lucia fell asleep in the backseat of the town car Adrian insisted on sending. Her stuffed rabbit was tucked beneath her chin, and every few minutes she stirred and murmured something about dancing.
I watched the city lights pass outside the window.
Boston had never looked so cold.
Adrian sat across from me, silent.
“You don’t have to come home with us,” I said.
“I’m not letting you go home without security.”
“I don’t need your protection.”
“Tonight, you might.”
I looked at him. “Because your uncle sent a threatening photograph?”
“Because Malcolm Vale doesn’t make threats unless he intends to follow through.”
“Who is he?”
Adrian took a long breath.
“My father’s younger brother.”
“And why does he hate your family?”
“Because he believes the family owes him everything.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“It’s the closest answer I can give without explaining things I don’t fully understand myself.”
I let out a bitter laugh.
“Your whole family seems to have a talent for not understanding things.”
He accepted that without argument.
The car stopped in front of my apartment building in East Boston. The place was old, narrow, and tired. The hallway light flickered. Someone had taped a handwritten note over the broken mailbox lock.
Adrian looked out the window.
“This is where you live?”
“Yes.”
“Is it safe?”
“It’s home.”
He nodded, but his expression said he knew those were not always the same thing.
I carried Lucia upstairs. Adrian followed at a distance, while two security guards waited near the entrance.
My apartment was small enough that I could see almost all of it from the doorway: the secondhand couch, the chipped kitchen table, Lucia’s crayons scattered beneath the television.
I laid her in bed, pulled the blanket up to her chin, and kissed her forehead.
Then I returned to the living room.
Adrian stood near the window.
“You should go,” I told him.
“Not until I know you’re safe.”
“Why do you care?”
He turned.
For the first time, he didn’t look like a billionaire or a man accustomed to being obeyed. He looked tired.
“Because you’re my family.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know enough.”
“No. You know that my mother may have been your aunt. You know your family lost her and then spent decades hiding why. That doesn’t make you my family.”
His eyes lowered.
“You’re right.”
The knock at the door made us both freeze.
Three hard knocks.
Then silence.
Adrian reached for his phone.
“Stay behind me.”
“I live here,” I whispered.
Another knock.
I moved toward the door, but Adrian caught my wrist—not forcefully, just enough to stop me.
The gesture made me angry.
“Don’t touch me.”
He released me immediately.
“Sorry.”
I looked through the peephole.
No one was there.
Then I saw it.
A small white envelope on the floor.
My name again.
I opened the door only after Adrian’s security team checked the hallway. The envelope contained no threat this time.
It held an old newspaper clipping.
The headline read:
VALE HEIR DIES IN VEHICLE CRASH; FAMILY MOURNS TRAGIC LOSS
The article was dated twenty-eight years ago.
Daniel Bennett had died in a car accident two weeks before I was born.
But someone had circled one sentence in red ink.
Police declined to comment on reports that the vehicle’s brake line had been tampered with.
My knees went weak.
Adrian took the clipping from me.
His face darkened.
“My family never saw this.”
“Maybe they did.”
“No.”
“You don’t know that.”
He looked toward Lucia’s bedroom.
Then he said something I did not expect.
“My father died six years ago. Before he died, he told me there was something he should have done differently. Something involving Rose.”
“What did he mean?”
“He never explained.”
“Of course he didn’t.”
I was exhausted. Furious. Terrified.
And suddenly, I could not stand to look at Adrian Vale anymore.
“Please leave.”
He nodded.
At the door, he paused.
“Victoria, tomorrow morning, I’m bringing someone to meet you.”
“Who?”
“My father’s former attorney. He handled the family matters after Rose disappeared.”
“Why?”
“Because I think he knows the truth.”
The next morning, I woke to Lucia standing beside my bed.
“Mama?”
“Yes, baby?”
“Was Grandma Rose a princess?”
I almost smiled.
“No, sweetheart.”
“Then why does she have a big fancy family?”
“I don’t know.”
Lucia climbed into bed beside me.
“Did they lose her?”
“Yes.”
“Like when I lose Mr. Bunny?”
“Something like that.”
She thought about it.
“Maybe they should have looked harder.”
Her words hit me harder than they should have.
At ten o’clock, Adrian returned with an elderly man named Harold Pierce. He wore a gray suit and walked with a cane, but his eyes were sharp and nervous.
The moment he saw me, he stopped.
“You have Rose’s eyes,” he said.
I folded my arms.
“People keep saying that. It doesn’t tell me anything.”
He nodded sadly.
“No. It doesn’t.”
We sat around my chipped kitchen table while Lucia colored nearby.
Harold placed a leather folder in front of me.
“Your mother did not disappear willingly,” he said.
Adrian went still.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Rose planned to leave with Daniel. Your grandfather—Eleanor’s husband—disapproved of the relationship. He believed Daniel was beneath the family.”
My stomach twisted.
“And Malcolm?”
Harold looked at Adrian.
“Malcolm was involved in the Vale family business even then. Not the public business. The private arrangements.”
“What private arrangements?”
Harold swallowed.
“Your grandfather had enemies. Malcolm handled problems.”
A chill crawled over my skin.
“Daniel was killed because he was with Rose?”
“I cannot prove it,” Harold said. “But I believe Malcolm arranged the sabotage.”
“And my mother?”
“She was told Daniel abandoned her. Then she was told her family had chosen to protect Malcolm instead of her.”
I stared at the folder.
Inside were copies of old letters.
My mother’s handwriting.
One letter had been addressed to Eleanor Vale.
It had never been mailed.
It said:
If you loved me, you would have come yourself. You would have asked why I ran. Instead, you sent men in black cars. I will not let Malcolm find my baby.
My hands began to shake.
Eleanor had searched for her daughter.
But Rose had believed the people searching were sent to harm her.
Malcolm had stolen her life.
And now he had found mine.
That evening, Adrian received a call.
He answered, listened, and went pale.
“It’s Malcolm,” he said.
The voice on speaker was smooth and calm.
“Good evening, nephew. I see Rose’s little secret is no longer a secret.”
“What do you want?” Adrian asked.
“A private conversation. You, me, and Victoria.”
“No.”
Malcolm chuckled.
“Then perhaps I’ll speak with the little dancer instead.”
I looked toward Lucia.
She was asleep on the couch with her rabbit in her arms.
Adrian’s grip tightened around the phone.
“If you go near them—”
“You’ll do what?” Malcolm asked. “You’ll finally become a Vale?”
The call ended.
And in that silence, I understood that finding the truth was not the end of the story.
May you like
It was the beginning of the danger.
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