Chapter 10 - THE ROAD NORTH
We traveled for three days. No phones. No credit cards. No names.
I bought an old sedan with cash. I drove. Noah slept in the passenger seat or stretched out in the back. We ate at diners off the highway. We slept in roadside motels. Every face I passed felt like Viktor’s. Every car behind us felt like it was following.
Noah asked questions. Gentle, persistent questions.
“Where are we going?”
“To the ocean.”
“When will we be home?”
“Soon.”
“When will Daddy find us?”
I had no answer.
On the fourth day, we reached the coast of Maine. The air turned crisp and salty. Pines crowded the road. The safe house stood at the end of a long, rutted track—a small gray cottage perched on a cliff overlooking the ocean. Isolated. Quiet. No neighbors within sight.
I unlocked the door. Dust motes danced in shafts of sunlight. A fireplace. Two bedrooms. A porch facing the sea. Sarah had stocked it months earlier—food, blankets, supplies. Enough to last us a long time.
Noah walked to the window. “It’s pretty.”
“It is,” I said.
He turned to me, his face serious. “We’re hiding, aren’t we?”
I knelt beside him. There was no point lying. Not anymore. “Yes. We’re hiding. From a man who wants to take you away.”
“Is he the man who hurt Grandma?”
I hesitated. “He hurt a lot of people. Including Grandma.”
Noah thought about this. Then he took my hand. “It’s okay, Mommy. I’m brave. Just like you.”
Tears pricked my eyes. “Yes. You are the bravest person I know.”
That night, after Noah fell asleep, I sat by candlelight and spread everything out on the kitchen table. Evelyn’s letter. The notebook. Copies of deeds and records. Everything I had brought.
I read the letter again. Then again.
*Your father never spoke of him. He told everyone his only sibling had died decades ago. But Viktor did not die. He was disowned. Banished. For crimes too dark to name.*
Crimes too dark to name. What crimes?
I flipped through the notebook. Evelyn’s handwriting was dense, private, coded. But as I read deeper, a picture began to emerge.
Twenty-five years ago. A death. A young woman. Found at the bottom of a cliff. Ruled a suicide. But Evelyn had written: Viktor was there. He came back that night with blood on his cuffs. He said it was a deer. But I saw the look in his eyes. He pushed her. And Thomas—your father—knew. That is why he banished him. That is why he paid him to stay away. Hush money. For murder.
My breath caught.
The victim’s name had been crossed out. But beneath the ink, faint and barely legible, were three letters.
*L-I-A.*
Lia.
I leaned forward. My hands trembled as I read the next entry. Dated three days before my father died.
*Thomas came to me. He was terrified. He said Viktor knew. He said Viktor was coming to take everything. He said he had found Lia’s child. Alive. And he said that child had a stronger claim than Viktor. A claim that would destroy him.*
My heart stopped.
*Lia’s child. Alive.*
I flipped pages frantically. The next entry was written the day after my father’s death.
*He is gone. Viktor says heart attack. But I know. Thomas was going to reveal Lia’s child. Viktor killed him before he could speak. And now… he is looking for the child. He will tear the world apart to find him. If he does… Noah is not the only one in danger.*
I sat back, staring at the words.
There was another heir. A hidden heir. Lia’s child. Born before she died. Kept secret. Protected. A child with a claim Viktor feared more than anything.
And that child… was still alive.
I looked at the final line of that page. Written in a shaky hand:
*If anything happens to me… find the boy. He holds the proof. He holds Viktor’s life in his hands.*
The boy.
Lia’s son.
I gripped the notebook, my mind racing. Viktor was hunting Noah. But he was also hunting someone else. Someone who could destroy him completely.
And then I saw it. Tucked between the pages, a folded scrap of paper. A birth certificate. Faded. Smudged. But legible.
Name: DANIEL JAMES HENDERSON
Mother: LIA MARIA HENDERSON
Father: THOMAS EDWARD HOLLOWAY
My father’s name.
Daniel’s name.
The room tilted.
Daniel was not Evelyn’s son. He was my father’s son. By Lia. The woman Viktor had killed.
May you like
Daniel was not just my husband. He was my half-brother.
And he was the heir Viktor had been searching for all along.
