Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 91847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
“No, he’s not dead. But if he shows his face here, he will be. There is one thing, though. If my mother or Caius have contact with you, you will let me know. Just like Dr. Cummings. Do you understand?”
“Why?”
“That doesn’t matter. What matters is that you understand me. Do you?”
She nods.
“Good. Do you need a ride home?”
She shakes her head. “I need to get my things,” she says, standing and taking a step toward Caius’s bedroom.
I put out an arm to stop her. “I’ll have them sent to you. My men will see you out. I don’t want to see you back here for the foreseeable future, clear?”
“Is that what Madelena wants?”
“It’s what I want. Are we clear, Ana?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Go.”
The soldier escorts her out, and I turn and walk down the empty corridor toward the study. I’ve already looked through it. There’s nothing here. No note, no letter. Just nothing. Caius’s bedroom, too, came up empty.
It’s not Caius I’m worried about. He won’t return. There’s nothing for him here except enemies. My mother is a different story. I sit behind the desk, see the empty glass with lipstick staining it. She is a different woman than I thought, and I will catch up with her. She and I do have one thing in common. We both have long memories, and I won’t soon forget what she did.
For now, though, I take one last look around and get up to go home to my wife.
39
SANTOS
Three Months Later
It takes three long months to locate my mother. In that time, I hear nothing of my brother. He has disappeared, as I expected him to. He can lick his wounds and do whatever the fuck he needs to do as long as it doesn’t involve him coming near my wife, my family.
Val should be with me as I exit the SUV outside the nondescript house along the outskirts of a forgettable town in the middle of Florida. I look around, thinking how unlike my mother this is.
Not that this is where I found her. No. She was in Monaco living a life she had become accustomed to with my father. She’d only arrived here, escorted, two nights ago.
The sky is overcast, clouds heavy and the heat uncomfortable. I stand in a fading sunset that may be pretty anywhere but here and listen to the constant cadence of what sounds like a thousand cicadas. Ahead of me stands the house my mother grew up in. The house itself is buried by an overgrowth of trees, bushes and weeds. Once upon a time, it may have been nestled within the foliage but now, it’s just old and very tired.
It’s surrounded by three acres, most of which is unusable wetland, and I have the feeling of wanting to be away, be gone, before I’ve even set foot inside. I can imagine my mother’s despair growing up here. Feeling stuck here.
I never knew anything about my grandparents from my mother’s side. They were dead, and my mother hadn’t had a great relationship with them when they were alive. She’d supported them is all I knew, or all I’d been told. I’m not sure much of anything I know about my mother is true, though.
Bringing her back here, to this house, is cruel punishment, but it’s better than she deserves. This is my mercy, although I doubt she’ll see it as such. My father had bought the house the year he married my mother. I hadn’t realized the significance of it when we’d been going over his holdings after his passing. I don’t know if my mother even knew he’d done that because the soldiers who escorted her back told me of her surprise when she realized where she was being taken.
A second car pulls up onto the driveway alongside mine. The driver steps out, nods his greeting, and reaches into the backseat to lift out a black bag. I walk toward the front door, and he follows. The two men stationed at the door greet me and open it to let me in. The man follows, takes in the space, the woman seated on the old sofa in the middle of the dusty, abandoned room and melts back against the shadows to await his orders.
I take in the old house, smell the old smell. Workers will begin their work on the interior soon, although it won’t be anything like my mother has become accustomed to. They’ve already started on the exterior. It’s uninhabitable as-is.
My mother’s eyes are locked on mine when I turn my gaze to hers. As usual, she’s unreadable.
I approach her, lifting a chair from around the old dining table, placing it a few feet from her and taking a seat.
Her wary gaze moves over my shoulder to the man with the bag before settling on me, and it’s like she’s a stranger, like I don’t know this woman at all.