Chapter 2 - The Roots of the Lie
The rain began to fall harder, drumming a furious tattoo against the canvas awnings above us, but I couldn't feel the cold. I couldn't feel anything except the solid, burning reality of Thomas’s shoulder beneath my hand. He was real. He was breathing. He was flesh and bone, not the ghost I had wept over for fifteen years.
“Get up,” I whispered, scrambling to my feet and pulling him up with me. My hands were stained with soot and rain, but I didn't care. I grabbed Emily’s hand with my free arm, squeezing it so hard she winced. “We’re going home right now.”
“Mom, wait, my bag—it’s just a cardboard box,” Thomas mumbled, looking around with paranoid wide eyes as if invisible watchers were tracking his every move from the shadows of the alleyway.
“Leave it,” I commanded, my voice dropping into a tone of absolute, protective authority that brook no argument. “You don't need anything from out here ever again.”
We hurried through the slick downtown streets toward the underground parking garage where my sedan sat waiting. Emily didn't ask questions; she walked beside her newfound brother, her eyes darting between his filthy clothes and my tear-streaked face, trying to assemble a puzzle whose pieces had just shattered her entire worldview.
When we reached the car, I unlocked the doors with shaking fingers. I pushed Thomas into the back seat, sliding in right beside him instead of taking the driver's seat, unwilling to let him out of my physical reach even for a second. Emily climbed into the front passenger seat, turning around to stare wide-eyed at the boy who was suddenly her flesh and blood.
“Are you... are you really my brother?” Emily asked softly, breaking the tense, humming silence of the car interior as the heater blasted warm air against our damp clothes.
Thomas looked down at his calloused, dirt-stained hands, curling them into fists against his jeans. He didn't look at Emily. He looked at me.
“She told me I didn't have a family,” Thomas said, his voice hard, laced with a bitterness that no teenager should ever possess. “She told me my mother gave me away because I was broken. Because I was bad.”
My heart shattered all over again, splintering into dust. I reached out, pulling him into my arms once more, pressing his head against my shoulder while he stiffened initially before melting into the embrace.
“She lied, Thomas,” I choked out, pressing a kiss to his damp hair. “I never gave you away. From the moment you were taken from that hospital crib, my life stopped. I searched every city, every state, every agency. The police closed the file after three years. They told me to move on. They said you were gone.”
“They didn't look hard enough,” Thomas muttered bitterly, pulling the yellowed hospital bracelet out of his pocket and turning it over in his palm. “She kept me close. Right here in the city. For years, I thought every woman I passed on the street might be her. But I never dreamed…”
“Who kept you?” I asked, my voice turning glacial, the grief instantly hardening into a cold, lethal fury. “Thomas, look at me. Who took you?”
He hesitated, his blue eyes flashing with a deep-seated fear that suggested the trauma of his childhood hadn't ended when he ran away from whatever hellish household he had escaped.
“Her name was Clara,” Thomas whispered, glancing nervously at the rain-streaked windows of the car as if she might materialize out of the gloom. “Clara Vance.”
The name hit me like a physical blow. Vance. The same ruthless surname that had haunted our business circles, the old family name tied to the city’s darkest underground real estate and adoption rings from two decades ago.
“Vance,” I breathed, the pieces clicking into a terrifying, coherent mosaic. “Victor Vance’s sister.”
“You know them?” Thomas asked, his eyes widening.
“They destroyed our family before you were even born, and then they came back for you,” I said, my voice shaking with a cold rage that scared even myself. I reached forward, turning the ignition, the engine roaring to life with a deep, reassuring purr. I put the car in reverse, backing out of the parking stall with sharp, calculated movements.
“We aren't going home,” I announced, shifting into drive and accelerating out of the garage into the wet Seattle night.
Emily turned around from the front seat, panic flashing in her young eyes. “Mom? Where are we going?”
May you like
I looked in the rearview mirror, locking eyes with my son—my long-lost boy who had survived fifteen years in the shadows while I lived a comfortable, stolen lie.
“We’re going to pay a visit to the people who wrote that death certificate,” I said. “And we’re going to get some answers.”
