Chapter 7 - The Price of ForgivenessRose was sitting in the nursery when we arrived.
She had insisted on returning to the mansion after the agents confirmed that the immediate threat had passed. A nurse remained with her, and the security team had searched the entire house.
The photograph lay on the small table beside the rocking chair.
Rose's fingers rested on its frame.
“I can feel the paper,” she said when Lorenzo entered. “I know it's a photograph. I know someone wants me to be afraid.”
He knelt beside her.
“Are you afraid, Mom?”
“Yes.”
He took her hand.
“I'm here.”
She turned toward him.
“That's why I'm afraid. They keep hurting the people I love to punish me.”
Lorenzo looked at the photograph.
His father stood beside Marianne outside a building marked with the name of a private medical foundation. Both appeared calm. Victor's hand rested on Marianne's shoulder.
On the back, someone had written:
Ask Isabella what she promised him.
Lorenzo stared at the words.
“I will.”
He found his aunt in the breakfast room. She had packed two suitcases and was preparing to leave.
“Going somewhere?” he asked.
Isabella looked at him.
“I thought it would be better if I stayed away.”
“Better for whom?”
She didn't answer.
He placed the photograph on the table.
“What did you promise my father?”
Isabella lowered herself into a chair.
For a long time, she stared at the picture.
Then she began to speak.
After Gabriel's disappearance, Victor had convinced her that Marianne was unstable and dangerous. He claimed she would take the twins and disappear, leaving the family vulnerable to a criminal investigation. Isabella had helped arrange the children's placements because she believed it was the only way to keep them out of Victor's hands.
But she had made another promise.
She had agreed to keep Rose from learning the full truth until Victor's financial records were recovered.
“Why?” Lorenzo asked.
“Because he told me Rose would be charged as an accomplice if she spoke. He had documents prepared to make it look as though she'd helped Gabriel hide money.”
Lorenzo shook his head.
“You let her suffer in silence.”
“I thought I could fix it.”
“You thought you could control it.”
Isabella lowered her eyes.
“Yes.”
She explained that she had spent years searching for Gabriel through private investigators. She found evidence that he had survived, but every lead disappeared. When she learned that Emma had applied for a job at the mansion, she recognized the birth date and the scar described in an old report.
She had recommended Emma because she believed Rose might recognize her.
“You used me,” I said from the doorway.
Isabella turned.
“I did.”
“You knew I might be her granddaughter, and you brought me here without telling me.”
“Yes.”
“Why should I ever trust you?”
Her eyes filled.
“You shouldn't have to. Trust is something I have to earn.”
I stepped into the room.
“Did you know about the accident before it happened?”
Isabella shook her head.
“No. I knew Victor intended to separate the twins from their parents. I did not know he planned to cause a crash.”
“Did you pay his security chief?”
She looked down.
“I paid him to get Gabriel out of the private clinic and into a place where Victor couldn't reach him.”
Lorenzo stared.
“Then why was he at the crash scene?”
“Because Victor told him to retrieve the children. I didn't know the crash was part of the plan until afterward.”
“Why didn't you go to the police?”
“Because Victor showed me photographs of Gabriel in the clinic. He said he'd make sure Gabriel died if I spoke.”
Lorenzo paced the room.
“You could have told me.”
“You were seventeen. Victor had already begun teaching you to take his place. I was afraid you'd go to him, and he'd destroy you, too.”
“You don't get to decide what truth I'm allowed to know.”
“No,” Isabella whispered. “I don't.”
For a moment, I felt sorry for her.
Then I remembered Rose reaching for the extra plate while Camille humiliated her in front of the family.
I remembered the eighteen years she had spent waiting.
“I don't know whether I can forgive you,” I told Isabella.
She nodded.
“I wouldn't ask you to.”
Lorenzo looked toward the hallway.
“Where is Michael?”
Isabella's face changed.
“He came to see me this morning.”
“What did he want?”
“To tell me that someone had found the old security logs.”
“Where are they?”
“I don't know. He said he had hidden them.”
Lorenzo pulled out his phone.
Before he could call, a message appeared from Michael.
I need to talk to you alone. No guards. No police. There's something I should have told you in 2008.
Lorenzo showed the message to Isabella.
She went pale.
“Don't go.”
“Why?”
“Because Michael is afraid of someone.”
“Who?”
She looked toward the window.
“Not your father.”
Lorenzo stared at her.
“Victor is dead.”
Isabella swallowed.
“Then why did Michael tell me that someone had been paying him for eighteen years?”
The room went silent.
“Who?” I asked.
Isabella shook her head.
“He wouldn't say.”
Lorenzo's phone vibrated again.
A second message appeared.
The crash wasn't supposed to kill Rose. It was supposed to kill Marianne. But the driver changed the route.
Lorenzo stared at the screen.
Then another message arrived.
Ask Isabella who was in the car before Marianne got in.
My aunt began shaking.
Lorenzo slowly turned toward her.
“Who was in the car?”
Isabella's lips parted.
For the first time, she looked truly terrified.
“Your mother,” she whispered.
Rose's voice came from the doorway.
“Tell them everything, Isabella.”
Everyone turned.
Rose stood beside her nurse, one hand gripping the doorframe.
“I remember the car,” she said. “And I remember who was driving.”
Lorenzo moved toward her.
“Mom?”
Rose lifted her face.
“The driver wasn't your father's man.”
May you like
She swallowed.
“It was Marianne.”
