Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN EVERYONE STOPPED HEARINGThe next morning, Raven Hill felt different.
No one laughed at my shoes.
Wesley wouldn’t look at me.
June Callaway nearly dropped a coffee pot when Ronan entered the servants’ dining room behind me.
Apparently, arriving with the boss changed a woman’s social status faster than new shoes ever could.
“Phones,” Ronan said.
Everyone stared.
“All of them.”
Eleven employees placed their phones on the table.
Wesley hesitated.
Ronan looked at him.
Wesley surrendered his.
Ronan picked it up.
“Yesterday you recorded Mara entering my mother’s room.”
Wesley turned pale.
“It was a joke.”
“My mother nearly died while you were filming.”
“I didn’t know.”
“That’s why you’re still standing.”
Ronan deleted the recording.
Then he dismissed Wesley and June from Raven Hill pending investigation.
I should have felt satisfied.
Instead, I watched June.
She looked frightened.
Not angry.
Before security escorted her out, she glanced toward the second-floor balcony.
Someone stood there.
A man in a navy suit.
Silver hair.
Elegant posture.
He disappeared before I could identify him.
Evelyn was waiting for me upstairs.
The moment the door closed, her hands moved.
“You came back.”
“I promised.”
“Ronan knows?”
“Some.”
Her expression tightened.
I sat beside her.
“Who moves your medication?”
She pointed toward the hallway.
“Many hands.”
“Who do you trust?”
Her answer came immediately.
“You.”
My throat tightened.
“You met me yesterday.”
“No.”
I stared.
Evelyn touched my falcon tattoo.
Then signed one word.
“Gabriel.”
She knew.
Not everything.
But enough.
I pulled the chair closer.
“Gabriel gave me a message for you.”
Her entire body trembled.
I had carried those words for four years.
Now I finally gave them back.
“He said, ‘Tell Mother the falcon found the storm. Tell Ronan not to trust the man who taught us to bury our dead.’”
Evelyn made a broken sound.
Not a word.
A breath with grief inside it.
Then her fingers moved.
“Silas.”
“Who is Silas?”
The door opened.
Ronan stood there.
Behind him was the silver-haired man from the balcony.
“My uncle,” Ronan said.
The man smiled.
“Silas Cain.”
Every instinct in my body screamed.
Silas approached Evelyn and kissed her forehead.
She recoiled.
Barely.
But I saw it.
So did Ronan.
Silas turned toward me.
“You must be the miracle worker.”
“No miracles.”
“Yet my sister-in-law has suddenly found someone who understands her.”
His smile never reached his eyes.
“Fortunate.”
Evelyn’s fingers moved beside the blanket where Silas couldn’t see.
Falcon.
Storm.
Blood.
I forced myself not to react.
Silas looked at my wrist.
I pulled down my sleeve.
Too late.
His eyes changed.
Only for a second.
But it was enough.
He recognized the tattoo.
That night, someone broke into my apartment.
Nothing valuable was taken.
Not Poppy’s tablet.
Not the forty dollars hidden inside the flour tin.
Not even the old laptop beside my bed.
They took only one thing.
A small wooden box I had hidden beneath a loose floorboard.
Gabriel’s box.
I called Ronan.
He arrived in nine minutes.
When he saw the splintered floor, he became terrifyingly quiet.
“Where’s Poppy?”
“With Mrs. Alvarez downstairs.”
“What was in the box?”
“Something Gabriel gave me.”
His eyes snapped toward mine.
“What?”
“A ring.”
“What ring?”
“Black stone. Falcon engraved inside.”
Ronan stopped breathing for a second.
“That was my father’s signet.”
“I didn’t know.”
“What else?”
“A key.”
His jaw tightened.
“To what?”
“I don’t know.”
Ronan looked around the room.
“They knew exactly what they wanted.”
“Yes.”
“Which means someone knows you were with Gabriel.”
“Yes.”
“And knows you came back to Raven Hill.”
“Yes.”
He faced me.
“You and Poppy are coming with me.”
“No.”
“Mara.”
“I spent four years keeping her away from your world.”
“And tonight my world entered your apartment.”
I had no answer.
Ronan stepped closer.
“You don’t have to trust me.”
His voice lowered.
“But trust the fact that anyone willing to break into a home where a six-year-old sleeps has already crossed a line I will not tolerate.”
That was the first time I understood something important about Ronan Cain.
People feared him because they believed he had no heart.
They were wrong.
He had one.
He simply kept it behind walls thick enough to survive war.
Twenty minutes later, Poppy was asleep in my arms as Ronan’s car climbed the hill toward Raven Hill.
Halfway there, his phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
Then looked at me.
“What?”
His expression hardened.
“June Callaway is dead.”
Cold spread through my chest.
“How?”
“Her car went through a guardrail.”
I remembered her frightened glance toward Silas.
“Accident?”
Ronan looked out at the dark road.
“No.”
Then his phone vibrated again.
This time, it was a photograph.
He showed me.
Someone had placed Gabriel’s stolen black signet ring on June’s body.
May you like
Beneath it was a note containing only four words.
THE FALCON SHOULD HAVE STAYED DEAD.
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