Chapter 5
Amara’s room smelled faintly of lavender.
For two years, I had avoided it because grief lived behind that door.
Now truth did too.
Emmett walked beside me, his hand tight in mine.
“I come here sometimes,” he whispered.
I looked down at him.
“How?”
He reached behind a photo frame and showed me a small key.
“Mom gave it to me before the hospital.”
The hospital.
Amara had died after a sudden illness.
A blood infection, they said.
Fast.
Brutal.
Unfair.
I had believed them because grief had swallowed my ability to question anything.
Emmett led me to the closet.
At the back, beneath a cedar box, was a red leather album.
I opened it on the bed.
Photographs filled the first pages.
Me and Amara.
Emmett as a baby.
Birthdays.
Christmas.
The life my mother had always called messy.
Then the pictures changed.
Documents.
Receipts.
Screenshots.
Medical reports.
One page held a photograph of Lucille meeting Dr. Adrian Cross, Amara’s physician.
Another showed Victor Hale leaving my mother’s townhouse at midnight.
The last page held a sealed envelope.
Rafael.
My hands shook.
I opened it.
My love,
If you are reading this, they have started using Emmett’s softness against him.
That means Lucille is afraid.
Not of him.
Of what he owns.
I stopped breathing.
The estate is not the real inheritance. Your father hid evidence inside Emmett’s trust. Proof of Montaro crimes, false accounts, stolen properties, and medical fraud. I found enough to know Lucille will never allow Emmett to inherit freely.
I looked at my son.
He stared at the floor.
The letter continued.
If something happens to me, do not trust my illness.
A sound left me.
Not a word.
Not a cry.
Something worse.
Emmett whispered, “Daddy?”
I pulled him close.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
May you like
I answered.
A woman said, “If you found Amara’s album, leave the house now.”
