Chương 8
“I know what happens when someone believes they can handle everything themselves.”
He looked back at me.
“My brother thought the same thing.”
Nobody answered.
Because there was nothing to say.
Thirty minutes later, I was sitting in the back of my SUV.
Victor was beside me.
Diego followed in another vehicle.
I had lost that argument.
Not because Victor convinced me.
Because deep down, I did not want to walk into that house alone.
The city disappeared behind us as we headed toward the old neighborhood.
I had not been there in fifteen years.
Not since the funeral.
Not since my mother sold everything connected to that place.
Not since I decided memories were just another way to hurt yourself.
The road looked smaller than I remembered.
That was one of the cruel things about returning to the past.
Places changed.
But the version of you trapped inside them stayed the same.
When we turned onto my old street, I saw the house immediately.
It was impossible.
The same white fence.
The same front steps.
The same tree in the yard where my father taught me how to ride a bicycle.
Only now the branches were thicker.
The paint was faded.
The windows were dark.
But it was standing.
Victor stared at it.
“Someone rebuilt it.”
“Maybe.”
“No.”
He looked closer.
“This isn’t rebuilt.”
I followed his eyes.
The cracks in the driveway.
The damaged corner of the porch.
The broken mailbox.
They were exactly how I remembered them.
Not restored.
Preserved.
Someone had kept this place frozen.
We stopped several houses away.
Diego joined us.
“Nothing obvious.”
“Obvious isn’t usually the problem,” Victor said.
Diego glanced at him.
“You okay?”
Victor ignored the question.
That told me enough.
I walked toward the house.
Victor followed.
At the front door, I noticed something.
A small scratch near the handle.
Three lines carved into the wood.
I touched them.
My father had done that.
I remembered.
When I was a child, he told me every house had a history.
He said people ignored small marks because they were too busy looking for big answers.
My hand stayed on the door.
A memory came back.
My father kneeling there with a toolbox.
Me sitting on the floor asking why he fixed old things instead of buying new ones.
His answer had annoyed me at the time.
“Because old things tell you what happened.”
I stepped back.
The door opened before I touched it.
Victor immediately moved in front of me.
A voice came from inside.
“You took longer than I expected.”
I knew that voice.
Not personally.
But from the call.
The man from the phone.
We entered slowly.
The inside of the house smelled like dust and old wood.
Not like a burned building.
Like a place someone had lived in recently.
A lamp was on in the living room.
A man sat in my father’s old chair.
He looked exactly like the photograph Victor showed me.
Arthur Vale.
Older than the picture.
Calmer than anyone should be in that situation.
“You’re Ramon Ortega.”
I did not answer.
Arthur looked at Victor.
“And you brought him.”
Victor’s face hardened.
“I knew you were involved.”
Arthur smiled slightly.
“No.”
He looked at me.
“He knew before he knew.”
I hated how much that sounded like something my father would say.
“What do you want?”
Arthur looked around the room.
“This house belonged to a good man.”
“Answer me.”
He nodded.
“Still impatient.”
“You know me?”
“I knew your father.”
That sentence changed the room.
Not because it surprised me.
Because I had spent years hearing strangers talk about him like he was a memory.
This man talked about him like he was a person.
“You worked with him.”
“No.”
Arthur looked toward the fireplace.
“I worked against him.”
Victor shifted.
“Then why are you here?”
Arthur looked at him.
“Because your brother made the same mistake your father made.”
Victor froze.
“What?”
“He believed the truth was enough.”
The words hung there.
Arthur stood slowly.
He did not appear threatening.
That made him more dangerous.
“Truth does not protect people.”
“Then what does?”
“Control.”
I almost laughed.
It was exactly the kind of answer I expected from someone like him.
“You sound like the people you claim to oppose.”
Arthur looked at me.
“Your father said the same thing.”
The mention of my father pulled me forward.
“What happened that night?”
Arthur was quiet.
Then he walked toward a bookshelf.
He pulled out an old book.
My father’s book.
I recognized the torn blue cover.
I had seen it hundreds of times.
Arthur opened it.
A hidden compartment had been cut into the pages.
Inside was a small envelope.
My breathing changed.
“You had this?”
“No.”
He handed it to me.
“Your father left it.”
I stared at the envelope.
“My father didn’t trust you.”
“No.”
Arthur looked at the floor.
“He trusted someone else.”
“Who?”
Arthur’s eyes moved toward Victor.
Nobody spoke.
Victor looked confused.
Not guilty.
Confused.
And that scared me more.
Because if Victor truly did not know, then there was someone else.
Someone closer.
Someone we had not considered.
Arthur spoke quietly.
“The person who betrayed your father was not his enemy.”
He paused.
“They were family.”
“They were family.”
The word landed harder than anything else that night.
I looked at Victor.
He looked at me.
For once, neither of us had an answer.
Arthur placed the envelope on the table between us.
“Your father discovered the truth too late.”
“What truth?”
“That the Gray Circle was never just a group of people buying influence.”
He leaned against the desk.
“It was a system.”
I opened the envelope.
Inside was a single page covered in my father’s handwriting.
I knew it immediately.
Not because I had seen those exact words before.
Because I recognized the way he wrote when he was afraid.
The letters leaned slightly to the right.
May you like
The spaces between words became uneven.
He wrote faster when he believed time was running out.
