Chapter 6 - Vivien’s Bargain Was Never About Love or Loyalty

They did not go to the conservatory.

That was Silas’s decision, and for once Mave agreed with him.

“If Renato owns the building, he will expect us there,” she said.

Silas nodded. “Which means we make him believe we are coming.”

Teresa drove to an abandoned funeral home that the Carbones had once used for discreet meetings. Father Rainer stayed behind at the tailor shop with the church program. Vivien sat across from Mave in the dark rear room while Silas and Teresa arranged a false convoy toward the conservatory.

For several minutes, neither woman spoke.

Then Vivien said, “You can ask.”

Mave looked up. “Ask what?”

“Whether I ever slept with him.”

Mave stared at her. “I was trying very hard not to become that woman.”

“I would ask.”

“That does not help.”

Vivien’s mouth curved slightly before pain erased it. “No. We never slept together.”

Mave hated the relief that moved through her.

Vivien saw it and did not pretend otherwise. “You are allowed to be relieved. It does not make the rest less terrible.”

“Why did you agree to marry him?”

“My father asked me to.”

“That simple?”

“No.” Vivien leaned back. “I also thought I could use the marriage to stop him from killing Silas.”

Mave blinked.

Vivien explained that four years earlier Elias Creel had discovered someone inside his organization was feeding routes, names, and account information to Carbone soldiers. He believed Silas’s father was responsible. Silas believed the Creels had arranged an ambush that killed his older brother, Anthony.

Both assumptions were wrong.

“Renato engineered the ambush,” Vivien said. “He killed Anthony because Anthony had found irregular transfers in Black Harbor. Then Renato framed the Creels and used the war to move money through emergency security contracts.”

“Did Silas know?”

“Not then.”

Mave thought of the ledger. “Your father knew?”

“He suspected. The marriage was a cease-fire. It gave him time to investigate without losing more people.”

“And the ledger was his proof.”

“Part of it.”

“Why hide it with my mother?”

Vivien looked down at her injured hand. “Because Celia Holloway was the only witness my father believed Renato would underestimate.”

Mave’s chest tightened.

“My mother died of cancer.”

Vivien raised her eyes. “I know.”

“That sounded like you were about to tell me otherwise.”

“No.” Vivien’s answer was immediate. “Do not let this world steal every ordinary tragedy from you. She was sick. Her illness was real. Renato did not cause it.”

The distinction mattered more than Mave expected.

“What happened to your father?”

Vivien’s expression closed.

“Three years ago, he disappeared from a boat on Lake Michigan. Everyone assumed he was dead.”

“You don’t?”

“I found a message six months later. Three words in his cipher: Keep it buried.”

“The ledger.”

“Yes.”

Mave studied her. “And Silas stayed married to you because if your father was alive, the truce still had value.”

“Partly. Also because divorce would transfer control of twenty percent of Creel Shipping back to a board Renato had spent years infiltrating.”

“So the marriage protected money.”

“It protected ports, employees, witnesses, and eventually us. Money is simply how men like Renato draw maps around people.”

The front door opened.

Silas entered with Teresa. “Convoy was hit.”

Mave stood. “Casualties?”

“Two men injured. Nobody killed.”

“Renato took the bait.”

Silas set a tablet on the table. Security footage showed three black SUVs boxing in a decoy vehicle outside the conservatory.

One attacker had been captured.

His face appeared on-screen.

Vivien went rigid.

“You know him,” Mave said.

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“My father’s former driver.”

Silas stared at her. “He died in the lake with Elias.”

“Apparently not.”

The captured man’s name was Daniel Voss. Under questioning, he refused to speak except for one sentence.

He wanted Vivien.

Silas turned off the tablet. “We move again.”

“No,” Vivien said.

He looked at her.

“I want to see him.”

“Absolutely not.”

“He drove my father for eleven years.”

“And may now work for Renato.”

“Or he survived the same night my father vanished.”

Mave watched them argue until she noticed something on the frozen image.

Daniel Voss wore a small silver medal around his neck.

A saint holding a child.

Mave had seen the same medal somewhere before.

She searched her memory until the answer came.

Her mother’s jewelry box.

Celia had owned one exactly like it.

Mave stepped closer to the screen.

“Vivien,” she said, “did your father ever know my mother before the ledger?”

Vivien looked at her too slowly.

Mave’s stomach tightened.

“He did, didn’t he?”

Vivien closed her eyes.

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“Yes.”

Silas studied the medal on the screen, then looked at Mave with an expression she could not read. “If Elias knew your parents before the ledger, then the story we have been following may start years earlier than we thought.” Mave nodded. That possibility did not make her feel closer to the truth. It made the floor beneath every memory less stable. She had spent the night learning that secrets rarely began where people claimed they did.