CHAPTER 19 — VICTOR’S MIDNIGHT MEETING
Victor studied the photograph without speaking.
Evelyn stood across from him in Adrian’s former office.
The room had become a legal center, but for that moment, it felt like an interrogation chamber.
“Where was this taken?” she asked.
“At a private airfield.”
“When?”
“Three weeks before your mother died.”
“You told me you were overseas during that period.”
“I was.”
“But you returned.”
“For one night.”
Evelyn placed the photograph on the desk.
“What happened after midnight?”
Victor moved toward the window.
“Katherine called me. She said she had discovered something that could destroy several families.”
“The Covenant?”
“She didn’t use that name.”
“What did she ask you to do?”
“Help her leave.”
Evelyn had expected denial.
The admission unsettled her more.
“Leave you?”
“Leave everything.”
Victor’s voice remained controlled, but his hand tightened against the windowsill.
“She wanted to take you and disappear.”
“Why didn’t we?”
“Because I refused.”
Evelyn felt the anger rise slowly.
“You refused to protect us?”
“I believed I could solve the problem with money and influence.”
“You believed you could control it.”
“Yes.”
The honesty did not lessen the damage.
Victor continued.
“Katherine gave me a package at the airfield. She told me to deliver it to a journalist if anything happened to her.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because the following morning, I received photographs of you entering school. Sleeping in your bedroom. Walking with your nanny.”
Evelyn went still.
“They threatened me with you.”
Victor nodded.
“I returned the package.”
“To whom?”
“A man who claimed he represented the people Katherine had investigated.”
“Name.”
“I never learned it.”
Evelyn pushed the photograph toward him.
“You protected your reputation for eighteen years.”
“I protected your life.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No,” Victor said. “I don’t.”
For the first time, his voice broke.
“That is the part I live with.”
Evelyn opened the envelope bearing his name.
Inside was a handwritten letter from Katherine.
Victor,
If you are reading this, then Evelyn has discovered enough to distrust both of us.
Do not ask her to forgive you.
Tell her about the second child.
Evelyn read the line twice.
“What second child?”
Victor stared at the letter.
His confusion looked genuine.
“I don’t know.”
“Do not lie to me again.”
“I’m not.”
Behind them, the office telephone rang.
The internal line had been disconnected when the foundation opened.
Yet it continued ringing.
Evelyn answered.
No one spoke at first.
Then a distorted voice whispered:
“Victor knows exactly who the second child is.”
The call ended.
At that moment, Caroline entered holding the leather book.
“I found something inside the binding.”
She placed a faded birth certificate on the desk.
The mother’s name was Katherine Harlan.
The father’s name had been removed.
The child had been born eleven months before Evelyn.
May you like
And beneath the child’s information, one word remained visible.
MALE.
