“I marked it,” she whispered. “I marked the inside cover.”
“With what?” Marcus asked.
Emily looked at me.
“With Rose.”
The name landed like a heartbeat between us.
Before anyone could speak, my phone rang again.
This time, the screen showed an unknown number.
I answered on speaker.
For two seconds, there was only static.
Then my mother’s voice filled the room, calm as winter sunlight.
“Lucas, darling. You always were faster than your father, but never quite careful enough.”
Emily gripped the blanket.
“Where is the notebook?” I asked.
A soft sigh. “Safe.”
“You forged medical documents. You isolated my wife. You endangered my child.”
“Your ex-wife,” Vivian corrected gently. “And you should be grateful someone in this family understands consequences.”
I felt Emily flinch at the word ex-wife.
My voice lowered. “You will not come near her.”
“My dear boy, I already have.”
Marcus stepped toward the door, signaling his men.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
But Vivian only continued, “There are truths in this family that Emily should never have discovered. That notebook was never the danger. It was what she found because of it.”
Emily stared at the phone.
“What did I find?” she whispered.
Vivian heard her.
“Oh, Emily,” she said, almost sadly. “You still haven’t remembered?”
The machines beside the bed kept their steady rhythm, but something in Emily’s expression changed. Confusion opened into fear, then into something stranger. Recognition, maybe. Or the edge of a memory surfacing from deep water.
Vivian’s voice softened.
“Ask Lucas about the night his sister disappeared. Ask him why the name Rose was never yours to choose.”
The call ended.
No one moved.
Emily’s eyes were fixed on me now, wide and searching.
“Luke,” she whispered. “What does she mean?”