Chapter 7 Atlas - Age 34
I returned to the convent.
I followed the same gravel path until I got to the building. Fifteen years hadn’t changed the place, except for the paint peeling on one window and the garden that looked a little overgrown.
I knocked once, and the door swung open almost immediately.
The nun, a young, soft-faced woman who didn’t meet my eyes, gave me a single nod when I gave her my name. She was more prepared than surprised. Like my arrival was less a visit and more an inevitability.
She turned without a word, her habit whispering against the stone floor as she slipped back into the dim hallway. I fell in behind her, shoes echoing, the air colder the deeper we went.
She led me to Sister Ana’s office. The elderly nun had more lines around her eyes than the last time I’d seen her and was moving slower. But her expression was the same; a quiet judgment mixed with patience she probably reserved only for lost men like me.
When she saw me, she bowed her head.
I tensed immediately. “Don’t do that.”
She lifted her gaze. “Out of respect, Don Cavalho.”
“It’s unnecessary.”
“You are the new Don, it is respectful,” she replied, stepping back so I could enter.
The halls looked smaller than I remembered.
I’d been nineteen the last time I walked that path—young, raw, convinced I knew how the world worked. I saw flashes of that day whether I wanted to or not: a silent little girl walking beside me, her hands clenched, her eyes empty. She’d lost everything in minutes, at the hands of my family.
Now I was back, older, harder, carrying a weight I didn’t have back then. And it hit me; it wasn’t the halls that had shrunk. It was me who’d changed. I’d grown, filled out, become something else entirely.
The younger nun slipped away, leaving me standing in the quiet. Sister Ana closed the door with a soft click that somehow felt final.
“What brings you, my son?”
I dragged a hand across my jaw and leaned back. “Business. You’ve heard?”
She nodded in response.
“I received news of your father’s passing. My condolences to you and the family.” Her eyes softened. “News travels even to quiet corners like ours. Congratulations on your appointment may be the wrong word.”
“That’s an understatement.”
She studied me for a long moment. “You never wanted this.”
“No.” The word came out before I could temper it. “I didn’t.”
“And yet it is yours.”
“It’s a sentence.” My voice tightened. “Not a gift or an honor. A responsibility forced on me because everyone else either died or can’t lead.”
“You are Leonardo Cavalho’s eldest grandson.” As if I needed the reminder. “You always knew this would be your path.”
I shook my head. “My grandfather wanted a warrior. A leader. Someone who thrived in chaos. I’m not him.”
“No,” she agreed. “You’re different. You think before you act. You carry things he never would have carried. That is why you struggle.”
“I struggle because I’m not strong enough,” I snapped, the frustration I’d held for months spilling too easily. “I’m not ruthless enough. I’m not brutal enough. I’m not—”
“Your father?” she interrupted.
Silence filled the room.
She leaned forward. “Strength is not the absence of doubt, Atlas. It’s the ability to lead even with doubt sitting on your shoulders.”
I looked away. The words shouldn’t have gotten to me, but they did.
“You know what this life costs,” I told her. “You know the things we’ve done.”
“I do,” she said without flinching. “I’ve lived beside your family for thirty years. I’ve seen the blood and violence. I’ve also seen what that blood has protected.”
I stared at her, unsure where she was going with this.
She continued, “Before the Cavalhos helped us, this convent was a failing refuge. Young unwed mothers came here with nowhere else to go. Girls beaten by husbands, thrown out by families, abandoned with children in their arms.” She paused, remembering.
“We turned no one away. But we had no resources. No heat some winters. No medicine. We needed roof repairs. I lost two girls and one infant during those years.” Her voice tightened slightly.
“Your grandfather stepped in. Then your father. And now you are our largest benefactor, Don Cavalho.”
I frowned. “Atlas,” I corrected her, pushing the title aside. “I wrote checks. That’s all.”
“You did more than write checks. You saved lives. You funded programs. Doctors. Supplies. A place for girls who had nowhere else to go.”
I didn’t respond. She was the first person who’d ever spoken about the Cavalho family without fear.
“You are a sinner,” Sister Ana murmured softly, “but you are not a monster.”
My jaw locked. If she knew everything I’d done, she’d use a different word.
She sighed, folding her hands. “You didn’t come here just to doubt yourself. What else is weighing on you?”
I reached into the inner pocket of my coat and pulled out a check. When I set it on the desk between us, her gaze dropped to it immediately. Her eyes skimmed the number, widened just a fraction. It was a significant sum—likely the largest donation the convent had ever received.
“That is… a lot of money,” she noted carefully, though it landed more like a question than a statement. She wasn’t just reacting to the amount—she was wondering about the source.
“My father asked me to bring it to you. He designated several contributions in his will. This one was meant for the convent. I thought…” My gaze drifted around the room, over the familiar furniture, the worn wooden shelves, the quiet simplicity that hadn’t changed in years.
“I thought I should deliver it myself. It’s been a long time since I last stood in this office. ”
She bowed her head again, a quiet, steady gratitude humming through the room.
Sister Ana had never been one for grand speeches or eager displays.
She carried her serenity like a shield—soft, unshakeable, and far more honest than any string of thank-yous.
Around her, silence spoke louder than any blessing she could ever offer.
I hesitated before I turned to the door. My hand hovered near the handle, the polished brass cold against my skin. For a moment, I told myself to walk away. To leave this place the way I always had—having given my money, said the right words, and kept my ghosts buried where they belonged.
But ghosts don’t stay buried long.
“The girl,” I asked quietly.
A flicker crossed Sister Ana’s face, brief and telling. Recognition. Understanding. A subtle tightening around her mouth, like she’d been waiting for this moment longer than she cared to admit.
Of course she knew who I meant.
I didn’t have to give a name. I didn’t have to explain. There was only one girl who could still follow me into a room fifteen years later. One child who had been delivered to her doorstep wrapped in blood and silence, carried by a man who never brought anything innocent with him.
Her gaze met mine, steady and searching. She wasn’t surprised or confused, but she was prepared. She’d been anticipating this question.
Maybe not today. But she’d always known it would come.
“Neve,” she replied.
Hearing the name out loud after fifteen years was a revelation. “She’s still here?”
“No,” Sister Ana told me. “She left eight months ago.”
I went still.
“She grew up,” Sister Ana continued. “We don’t keep girls here forever, Atlas. She wanted to start her own life. A job. A home. A chance at a normal life.”
My pulse kicked up, sudden and unwelcome. “Where did she go?”
“Different places. She wanted to see the world. But she still writes and I believe she found her feet in Tuscany.” She reached into a drawer and pulled out three small postcards.
Tuscany. Of course she’d choose somewhere quiet. Somewhere alive. Somewhere untouched by the world we’d dragged her from.
I took the postcards without speaking. Each one felt heavier than the last.
“You saved her once,” Sister Ana reminded me gently. “You should have expected she’d want more than walls.”
“She was better off here,” I muttered.
“No,” she said with certainty. “She was safe here. But safe is not a life worth living.”
I didn’t deny it. I couldn’t.
She watched me as if she could see the gears turning in my head.
“She is not your responsibility anymore,” she added.
But she was wrong. Because keeping her alive had been my mistake. And mistakes had consequences.
I slid the postcards into my coat and stood.
“Thank you,” I added stiffly.
“For what?” she asked.
“Not questioning why I needed to know.”
She nodded. “You will do what is right. You always have.”
I left without responding.
Outside, the sky was heavy with clouds. The air felt colder.
Tuscany. She was in Tuscany. She’d been gone for eight months. Eight months was enough time for a ghost to carve out a new existence and pretend that the past never happened.
She was somewhere out there—alive, rebuilding, unsuspecting. But the world was smaller than she thought. And fate had a habit of dragging unfinished business back to shore.