Chapter 12 Aurelia
AURELIA
My twins turn five on a gray Tuesday in March.
Helena bakes a cake. Chocolate with vanilla frosting because Finn refuses to eat anything else. The nannies sing “Happy Birthday” in their thick Cork accents while Liam claps his hands and Finn tries to blow out the candles before anyone finishes the song.
I watch from the doorway and try not to think about the fact that Cassian doesn’t know his sons exist. That he’s never seen them blow out birthday candles or heard them laugh or felt their small hands grab onto his fingers.
That they’re five years old and he doesn’t even know their names.
The house we live in sits on the eastern edge of Ballycotton, close enough to the village that I can walk to the market but far enough that we have privacy.
It’s a renovated cottage with whitewashed stone walls and a slate roof that leaks when it rains hard.
Three bedrooms upstairs, a kitchen and sitting room downstairs, and a garden out back that Helena tends obsessively.
The boys share a room because they scream if we try to separate them at night. Twin beds pushed close together, toys scattered across the floor, drawings taped to the walls that are mostly scribbles, but Finn insists are “dragons and boats.”
We have two nannies. Mary and Bridget. Both local women in their fifties who were hired by Victor before we arrived and are paid well enough that they don’t ask questions about why a young woman and her twin sons are living in Ballycotton under constant supervision.
Because that’s what this is. Supervision.
Helena runs the household, manages the staff, and makes sure the boys have everything they need. But she also reports to Victor. I know because I’ve seen her on the phone late at night, speaking quietly in the kitchen when she thinks I’m asleep.
Mary and Bridget take care of the boys during the day while I do nothing. They feed them, play with them, teach them their letters and numbers. The boys adore them, call them “Nanny Mary” and “Nanny Bri” in accents so thick and Irish it sometimes hurts to hear.
They don’t sound like me. They sound like they belong here, in this village, with these people. Like they were never supposed to be anything else.
“Mam, look!” Finn shouts, holding up a fistful of frosting he’s scraped off his slice of cake.
“I see it, baby.”
“Liam took the flower!”
Liam, who has been quietly eating his cake in the corner, looks up with wide innocent eyes. There’s blue frosting smeared across his cheek and a sugar flower clutched in his fist.
“Did not,” he says.
“Did too!”
“Boys,” Helena says firmly. “There’s enough cake for everyone. Finn, eat your piece. Liam, give your brother the flower back.”
Liam considers this for a moment, then shakes his head. Finn launches himself at his brother, and suddenly there’s shrieking and flailing limbs and cake flying everywhere.
I move to separate them, but Mary gets there first. She scoops Finn up with practiced ease while Bridget grabs Liam, and within seconds, they’ve been separated to opposite sides of the room.
“That’s enough,” Mary says, but she’s smiling. “You’re both covered in cake. Let’s get you cleaned up.” They cart the boys off to the bathroom, still arguing about the sugar flower, and Helena starts cleaning frosting off the table.
“They’re spirited,” she says.
“That’s a polite way of saying they’re terrors.”
“They’re five. It’s normal.”
I sink into a chair and watch her wipe down the table with efficient movements. She’s been with us since Barbados, five years and nine months now, and I still don’t know how I feel about her. She’s kind. Patient with the boys. Good at her job.
But she’s also Victor’s employee first and my friend never.
“How long are we staying here?” I ask.
Helena pauses, cloth in hand. “I don’t know.”
“Victor said it was temporary.”
“He says a lot of things.”
“So we’re just supposed to live here forever? Raise the boys in isolation?”
“You’re not isolated. You have the village. The market. The boys play with other children—”
“Under supervision. Always under supervision.”
Helena sets down the cloth and looks at me directly. “What did you expect, Aurelia? You’re raising the children of Victor’s enemy. Did you think he’d just let you walk away?”
The words sting because they’re true.
I’m trapped here.
“I’m going for a walk,” I say, standing.
“The boys—”
“Mary and Bridget have them. I just need air.”
Helena doesn’t argue. Just nods and goes back to cleaning.
I grab a jacket from the hook by the door and step outside into the drizzle that seems permanent in Ireland. The air smells like salt and rain and something green I can’t name. I walk down the narrow road toward the village center, hands shoved in my pockets, head down against the wind.
Ballycotton is beautiful in a stark, lonely way. Rolling green hills that slope down to the ocean. Stone walls that divide fields into neat squares. Houses clustered together like they’re huddling for warmth.
It should feel peaceful. Instead, it feels like a cage.
I’m halfway to the market when I see him.
A man standing near the harbor, watching the fishing boats come in. He’s dressed like a local—jeans, dark jacket, nothing that stands out—but something about the way he’s standing makes my skin prickle.
Too still. Too focused.
I slow my pace, trying to get a better look without being obvious.
He’s tall, maybe mid-thirties, with dark hair and a face I don’t recognize. Not from the village. Not one of Victor’s men that I’ve seen before.
He turns slightly, and his eyes sweep across the harbor before landing on me. We make eye contact for half a second before I look away and keep walking.
My heart is pounding.
Who is he? Vance security checking on me? Someone Victor sent without telling Helena? Or something worse?
I force myself to keep walking at a normal pace, resisting the urge to run back to the house. When I reach the market, I duck inside and immediately move to the back, where I can see the entrance.
The man doesn’t follow.
I spend twenty minutes pretending to shop, picking up bread and milk I don’t need, while my mind races through possibilities. Maybe I’m being paranoid. Maybe he’s just a tourist or someone visiting family.
I pay for the groceries and head back toward the house, checking over my shoulder every few steps.
He’s gone. The harbor is empty except for fishermen unloading their catch and a few locals chatting near the dock. I walk faster anyway.
By the time I reach the house, I’m nearly running. I burst through the door, breathing hard, and Helena looks up from where she’s folding laundry in the sitting room. “What’s wrong?”
“There was a man. At the harbor. Watching.”
Her expression sharpens. “Watching what?”
“Me. I think. I don’t know.”
“What did he look like?”
“Tall. Dark hair. Maybe mid-thirties. I’ve never seen him before.”
Helena sets down the laundry and pulls out her phone.
She makes a call, speaking quickly in a low voice I can’t quite hear.
When she hangs up, her face is carefully neutral.
“I’ll have someone check it out,” she says, “You’re safe here.
Victor has people watching the village. If there was a real threat, we’d know. ”
“Then who was he?”
“I don’t know. But I’ll find out.” She goes back to folding laundry like the conversation is over, but I can see the tension in her shoulders.
She’s worried too.
I go upstairs to check on the boys. They’re in their room with Mary, building something out of blocks that immediately collapses when Finn tries to add another piece to the top.
“Mam!” Finn shouts when he sees me. “Look what we made!”
“I see it, baby. It’s very tall.”
Liam is quieter, sitting slightly apart from his brother and stacking his own blocks in careful, measured rows. He looks up when I enter, and his green eyes are so much like Cassian’s that it physically hurts.
Every day, I see Cassian in my sons. The shape of their faces. The set of their jaws. The way Finn’s mouth curves when he smiles and the intensity in Liam’s gaze when he’s concentrating. They’re growing up looking more like their father every day, and he’ll never know.
“Come play, Mam,” Finn demands, grabbing my hand and pulling me toward the blocks.
I sit on the floor and let him show me his creation, but my mind is elsewhere.