Chapter 8
Chapter eight
Aloud, impatient banging against the door jolted me from the restless sleep I’d finally managed to fall into sometime after two in the morning.
“Miss?” a man’s voice called. “I need to be in this room.”
I rolled onto my side and squinted at the clock. Eight on the dot.
Jesus.
The knock came again, louder this time, followed by the unmistakable jiggle of the handle.
“I locked it,” I said hoarsely, pushing myself upright. “Give me a minute.”
“There’s a schedule,” the man snapped through the door. “We need to start prepping this room for the new mayor’s family.”
Before I could answer, Mary’s voice cut in, calm but firm.
“She just woke up,” she said. “You’ll have to wait.”
There was a pause. A muttered complaint. Then footsteps heading away.
I dragged myself out of bed and wrapped my robe around me, head pounding, body heavy with the kind of exhaustion that settled deep in the bones. I crossed the room and cracked the door just enough to see Mary standing there.
“They’re redecorating the private rooms,” she said quietly. “The new mayor has a young son. This one’s meant to be his.”
“That’s sweet. I hope they make it perfect for the little guy and full of the best toys.” I gave her a crooked smile. “I need half an hour,” I said. “To shower.”
She nodded. “No worries, take your time. But keep the door locked; it’s going to be a whirlwind around here today.”
Then she reached up, lifting a folded bundle.
“Oh, and this was dropped off early this morning,” she added. “From Our Lady.”
My habit—clean, pressed, and folded with care.
I opened the door a little wider and took it from her. The thought of my near abduction made a shiver run down my spine.
“Thank you,” I said.
“I’ll have coffee and a bagel waiting when you come down,” she said. “Take your time.”
I shut and locked the door, leaning my forehead against it for a second before moving on to the shower.
I stood under the spray until the water ran hot enough to fog the mirror and loosen the tight knot in my shoulders. After I stepped out, I wrapped a towel around my body and stared at the habit lying on the bed.
I hated that thing.
The scratch of the wool. The way it erased me the second I put it on.
But I had to keep up my ruse, so I dried my hair and reluctantly got dressed.
By the time I stepped into the hall, I’d pulled myself together, the exhaustion dulled into something manageable. I headed for the stairs, the long skirts swishing around my feet.
The house went quiet as I descended.
I couldn’t tell if it was because I was a nun or because of what had happened last night. Either way, eyes glanced away as I passed.
Mary was waiting in the kitchen with breakfast as promised.
“How are you holding up, dear?” she asked softly as she poured coffee.
“I’m fine,” I said, which was easier than being honest.
She handed me a mug and set an everything bagel, sliced in half, on a small plate. I sat at the little table by the window, schmearing a thick layer of cream cheese over each side.
The coffee was strong, black, and hot. Just what I needed.
As I ate, my thoughts wandered back to the events at the church. To the way his massive hands had wrapped around my waist. To how close he’d been and how my body had reacted before my brain caught up. I never imagined a man with bad intentions could interest me to this extent.
He was dangerous in a way I should’ve been relieved to escape, yet instead I found myself wishing I knew who he was, desperate to learn more about him.
I took another sip of coffee and forced myself to stop thinking about him.
Around me, the house buzzed with frantic motion, tablets lighting up, box cutters slicing tape, furniture being shifted and tagged as voices called out room numbers and inventory lists.
They were getting Gracie Mansion ready for our quick departure.
It wasn’t a big deal for me because all I owned in the world fit into one suitcase.
By the afternoon, the movers had arrived.
My father’s suits, files, and framed photos, which I barely remembered, were packed and on the truck in no time.
I stayed out of the way, letting them work and forget about me.
Invisibility was a gift today.
I sat on the loveseat in the Teal Room, my phone in my hand, scrolling quietly while the house emptied around me.
I didn’t have an expensive phone. But I had enough data to set up accounts on social media and search for whatever I needed.
I’d gone without a phone, without social media, without any real connection to the outside world for over seven years before I finally got access again.
Being online after that long was unreal at first. Everything had changed—apps, platforms, even the way people talked to each other.
For a while, it was like learning a foreign language all over again.
I didn’t use my real name. I picked something forgettable—an account and a display name that could easily belong to a thousand other women. No photos. No tags. No connections that could be traced by my father, the monastery, or anyone who knew me. I stayed invisible on purpose.
But over the last few weeks, I’d figured it out. Learned enough to navigate my socials and to use the internet without feeling stupid. And now that I was back in the city, I intended to take advantage of my new skills.
No one even seemed to notice me sitting here with my phone. Why would they? They hadn’t had every personal possession taken away. They hadn’t been forced into vows of silence, poverty, and obedience.
At the convent in Spain, my days had been mapped out down to the minute, and we were never allowed a cellphone.
We were woken before sunrise and expected to be dressed and silent before we left our cells.
Prayer came first, then more prayer, then Mass.
Breakfast was quick and quiet, followed by hours of work that rotated between cleaning, laundry, sewing, and whatever else they asked of us.
Talking was limited and monitored. Meals were eaten together, usually in silence, while someone read scripture aloud.
Recreation was brief and tightly controlled.
It was the only time conversation was allowed, and even then, it was supervised.
The afternoons blurred into more work, more prayer, more instruction on humility and service to the church. Evenings ended the same way every night, with prayer, followed by absolute silence until morning. No phones. No music. No privacy. No choices. Just repetition and control.
That was my life for years. I’d gotten to the point where I’d rather die than live that way.
Sitting here now, phone in my hand, scrolling freely while movers hauled boxes past me, it hit me how completely removed I’d been from my old life.
My new prison wasn’t pretty, but at least I’d had some freedom and the hope of making it back here and never returning.
The thought of going back to Spain made my stomach lurch.
The guest suite at my father’s new place was beautiful in the way hotel rooms were beautiful.
Everything was neutral and expensive, clearly chosen so no one ever got too comfortable, from the pale taupe walls to the thick carpet and the brand-new furniture that had never been sat on.
It was clear that I wasn’t meant to be here long.
Security was everywhere, with two guards posted at the elevator and another stationed down the hall.
I was told, politely but firmly, that I wasn’t to leave the apartment unless someone from my father’s team cleared it first. Maddox delivered the message right before we left Gracie Mansion, as if it were just another item on his list.
“And you’re not to speak about the church incident,” he had added.
I’d nodded and let it go. No point in arguing with a brick wall.
Once everyone disappeared, the place went quiet. The kind of quiet that I hated. I wandered from room to room, my habit itching against my skin, until I opened the closet in the guest suite and found a stack of old, worn boxes shoved into the back corner.
I recognized them immediately.
They were mine. Or at least they had been once.
I dragged them out and sat on the floor, peeling back yellowed tape.
Inside were photos I hadn’t seen since before my mother died.
There were small things too, keepsakes that had once lived on shelves and nightstands.
They were buried among old programs, cards, and a tennis bracelet missing its clasp.
Pieces of a life that had been packed away and forgotten.
Everything that proved I’d existed before I was hidden.
There was a picture of my mom and me at Rockefeller Center when I was six, both of us in scarves and gloves, her arms wrapped around me as she guided my skates across the ice.
Another showed Sofia—my best friend from diapers to sophomore year—and me at a dance recital when we were eight, hair slicked back, pink tutus flaring as we stood there convinced we’d be prima ballerinas someday.
One photo showed my family during my father’s city council campaign, before he learned how to smile without his eyes. His arm was around my mother, and she was laughing—really laughing—as though she believed in his future more than anyone.
The one that hurt the most was from my thirteenth birthday. My mom had her hands on my shoulders, leaning down to say something to me just as the picture was snapped. It was the last birthday she ever celebrated with me.
I brushed my thumb over the photo as a tear slid down my cheek, then tucked it into the fanny pack under my habit, next to my passport and phone.
I realized then that there were no photos from my years at the boarding school or after entering the convent. None at all. I had disappeared somewhere along the way.
The days leading up to my birthday dragged on, my father absorbed in meetings and speeches.
He went on television and promised to rid not just the city, but the country, of the old mafia families, using what happened at the church as proof that his fight had to go bigger.
By the end of the week, the news had already moved on, swallowed up by some louder headline out of Washington.
The Peregrine residence was quieter than Gracie Mansion and more controlled. I spent long stretches alone, watched but not engaged with. I wore the habit because it was expected, even though I hated every second of it.
I thought about Spain more than I wanted to.
The monastery crept into my thoughts. The night I ran away. The day Elizabeth vanished.
She’d arrived only a few months earlier, bright-eyed and eager, talking about how lucky she was to be chosen—how ready she was to adjust and prove herself as a postulant. They told us she’d decided the life wasn’t for her and that she’d left on her own. An obvious lie.
Elizabeth was young, pretty, and painfully innocent. A foster kid shuffled through the system. No parents. No family. No one to come looking for her.
By that afternoon, her bed had been stripped, her name erased, and something in me snapped.
That same evening, I’d gone to the priest’s office, my hands shaking as I opened my personal file and retrieved my passport.
A stack of papers sat on top of the filing cabinet, and I grabbed them too.
I didn’t have time to read them, I only knew they were wrong—ledgers showing large sums of money, too many women’s names, and shipping manifests that made no sense for a monastery that answered to no one but God and hid behind layers of church bureaucracy.
So I took off through the woods with nothing but the clothes on my back, my passport, and the papers.
I stole what I needed to survive, taking clothes off a line behind a home and a backpack left unattended near a bus stop, just big enough to shove my habit, my passport, and the documents into.
I spent that first night in Casa de Campo Park, curled up on the ground with my knees to my chest, cold, filthy, and too afraid to sleep for more than a few minutes at a time.
By morning, I was starving and sore and very much alone, but at least I spoke the language well after so many years in Spain.
I walked to Centro San Martín de Porres, which was the only place that made sense when I didn’t know where else to go.
It was a church-run outreach center on the edge of Madrid, the kind of place that fed people who had nowhere else to eat and cared for the poor and the unhoused.
I’d been sent there more than once from the monastery to help serve meals, to clean, and to pray with people who had lost everything.
It felt safe because it was familiar. Little did I know then that it would only lead to my next prison.
I hid the documents there out of desperation, with nowhere else to put them.
I didn’t yet understand what they were or why they mattered.
But I had a gut feeling they were connected to the girls who’d disappeared over the years.
I couldn’t risk keeping them with me, so I wrapped them in a plastic garbage bag and tucked them away behind the building where I hoped no one would think to look.
After that, there was nothing left to do but let the outreach center take me in.
They fed me and gave me a place to stay, even letting me make a phone call wherever I wanted.
I called my father, but he didn’t answer.
He’s never even mentioned it and still thinks I’m living under the monastery’s rule, or else he’s doing what he’s always done and turning a blind eye to anything that doesn’t fit his narrative.
I knew one thing for certain—I wasn’t ever going back to Spain.