Chương 8
“Do not disappear into whatever you call justice.”
His gaze dropped to her fingers.
She released him.
“You have three children watching you,” she said. “Even when they look busy.”
Noah was watching.
Sebastian placed the phone facedown on the counter.
Later, after Clarissa left and the children were asleep, Maya found Sebastian attempting to repair the kitchen drawer.
He had removed his jacket and rolled his sleeves. A screwdriver lay beside him. The drawer was worse than before.
“You can run a corporation,” she said.
“Several.”
“But not this.”
“The track is warped.”
“It was closing this morning.”
“It was closing incorrectly.”
“Now it doesn’t close at all.”
He sat back on his heels. “Progress is not always linear.”
She leaned against the counter.
For a moment, they were not discussing stolen letters, crime, or four years of absence. They were two tired adults in a small kitchen considering a broken drawer.
Then Sebastian said, “Clarissa is right about Marcus.”
“You believe he sold the warehouse schedule.”
“I believe he sold something. Augustus covered it because scandal would have damaged the family.”
“That sounds familiar.”
“Yes.”
“What will you do?”
“I’ve asked Daniel to contact federal prosecutors.”
Maya straightened.
He looked at the screwdriver rather than her.
“They’ve wanted Vale records for years. Marcus’ financial transfers overlap with companies they’re already examining.”
“And your records?”
“They won’t take one without the other.”
“You could go to prison.”
“Yes.”
She studied his face.
“Why are you telling me?”
“Because my choices affect the children now.”
“You could hide this.”
“I’ve seen what hiding things becomes.”
The answer was not noble. It sounded tired.
Maya looked toward the hallway. A night-light cast a pale circle against the wall.
“What happens to the people who work for you?”
“Some lose jobs. Some should. Some won’t deserve it.”
“And the companies?”
“The legitimate ones may survive under independent management. The others shouldn’t.”
She had expected him to defend the empire, or claim it was cleaner than outsiders believed. Instead he turned the screwdriver between his fingers.
“My grandfather taught me that protection required control,” he said. “I believed him because control was the only thing he offered after my parents died.”
Maya waited.
“He gave me schedules. Trainers. tutors. rules about where to sit in restaurants. He never asked if I was afraid.”
“Were you?”
“All the time.”
The words were almost too quiet to hear.
Maya looked down at the drawer.
“My mother used to unplug the phone when bills were late,” she said. “As if the electricity company couldn’t find us if the phone was silent.”
Sebastian glanced at her.
“I hated it,” she continued. “Then, after the triplets were born, I stopped opening mail for two weeks because I couldn’t pay anything. I became her without noticing.”
“You wrote to me anyway.”
“I wrote because not writing felt worse.”
He nodded.
The drawer slid inward half an inch and stuck.
Maya took the screwdriver from him, loosened one screw, lifted the track, and pushed it closed.
Sebastian stared.
“It was warped,” he said.
“It was crooked.”
“That’s what warped means.”
“No, it isn’t.”
He smiled then, briefly and without charm. It changed his face enough that she could imagine the man she had known five years earlier, before she understood the scale of his name.
She handed the screwdriver back.
“You should go.”
He stood.
At the door, he paused. “The prosecutors may ask to speak with you.”
“I have my own attorney.”
“I know.”
“And I’m not protecting Augustus.”
“I know.”
“I’m not protecting you either.”
He looked at her for a long moment.
“I know that too.”
Marcus was found nine days later in Montreal.
He had not fled because Sebastian threatened him. He had fled because the money he had taken belonged to men who expected repayment.
Canadian authorities detained him on a financial warrant unrelated to the Vale family. Daniel learned of it through Marcus’ attorney, who called to negotiate before the news became public.
The twelfth letter was not with him.
The photograph was.
It had been folded into a leather notebook with account numbers, dates, and initials. The back still carried Maya’s handwriting: Someone left this for me. I don’t know what it means, but I think you should.
Marcus claimed Augustus had ordered him to destroy it.
Augustus denied that.
Neither man explained why Marcus kept it.
The prosecutors asked questions. Vale attorneys began producing records. Reporters gathered outside the mansion and the Westchester estate. Shares in Vale Holdings dropped twenty-three percent in three days.
Sebastian spent his mornings with lawyers and his afternoons at the apartment when Maya allowed it.
He learned that Ivy refused bananas with brown spots but would eat banana bread containing the same fruit. Owen hated sleeves that covered her wrists. Noah lined his shoes against the wall before bed and became upset if someone moved them.
He was bad at brushing their hair.
He read stories too quickly.
He did not understand why the same book had to be repeated three times.
Maya corrected him until he stopped acting as if every correction were an accusation.
One rainy afternoon, Noah asked why Sebastian had not come before.
Maya was sorting laundry at the kitchen table. Sebastian sat on the floor, repairing a wheel on a wooden truck.
He did not look at her for rescue.
“I didn’t know where you were,” he said.
“Mommy sent letters.”
“She did.”
“The old man took them.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Sebastian pressed the wheel onto its axle and tested it.
“Because he was afraid.”
Noah frowned. “He didn’t look afraid.”
“Sometimes afraid people look angry. Sometimes they look calm.”
“Like you?”
Sebastian’s hand stopped.
“Yes,” he said. “Like me.”
Noah pushed the truck across the floor. It rolled under the sofa.
“What were you afraid of?”
Sebastian reached beneath the sofa and retrieved it.
“Losing people.”
“You lost us anyway.”
Maya closed her eyes.
May you like
Sebastian sat very still.
“Yes,” he said. “I did.”
