Chapter 4
I understood then that the frightening conclusion had been reached too quickly. A crash in the snow. Armed guards already tense. Gunfire in confusion.
Maybe no one had come for Lily at all.
I should have felt relieved.
Instead, I felt angry.
“You terrified me,” I said to Victor.
His gaze did not leave Marco. “I reacted to the locket.”
“You told me armed men came for my daughter.”
“I believed they might have.”
“Based on what?”
Victor dismissed the guards with a look.
When we were alone except for the doctor and Rosa near Lily, he reached for the locket again, but I caught it first.
“No,” I said.
His hand stopped.
“This belongs to my child.”
“It belonged to your mother.”
“It belongs to Lily now.”
Victor lowered his hand.
“Then keep it.”
“I intend to.”
I closed my fingers around the silver oval.
It was old and slightly tarnished, its hinge bent from years of use. My mother had worn it every day of my childhood. On mornings when we had little food, when rent notices appeared beneath the door, when she returned from late shifts with swollen feet, that locket had rested against her heart.
After she died, I found it in a small blue box with a note.
For Hannah. When you feel alone, remember that you were loved before you were born.
There had been no explanation for the carved symbol on the back: three narrow branches beneath a small star.
I had always assumed it was decorative.
Victor leaned against the counter.
“Elena gave that locket to someone twenty-four years ago,” he said. “She was not supposed to get it back.”
May you like
“Who?”
“My sister.”
