Chapter 41
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Rykard
The festival smelled like fried dough and caramel apples and too many fucking people packed into too small a space.
I pushed Apollo’s wheelchair through the crowd with practiced efficiency. One hand on each grip. Eyes scanning. Always scanning. Looking for threats. Looking for exits. Looking for the golden-haired woman Apollo swore was his sister.
I didn’t want to hope.
Hope was a weapon people used to destroy you from the inside out. It made you vulnerable. Made you stupid. Made you believe in things that couldn’t possibly be true after twenty-three years of searching and finding nothing but dead ends and false leads and women who looked almost right but weren’t.
Apollo had been obsessed with finding Colette since the day she disappeared. Since someone walked into our house and took her from her crib while we were all sleeping. Since the day our world fractured into before and after.
I’d searched too. For years. Decades. But I’d learned to compartmentalize. To function. To accept that she was probably dead and we’d never know what happened.
Apollo never accepted it.
He carried that loss like an open wound. Let it bleed into everything. Every woman he met. Every child he saw. Every fucking birthday that passed without her.
And now he thought he’d found her.
Violet Foster. Lettie. Twenty-five years old. Living two miles from the clubhouse. Golden hair. Soft features. The right age.
It could have been her.
Or it could have been another dead end that would destroy what was left of my son’s sanity.
“There,” Apollo said quietly, his voice tight with something I didn’t want to name. “Booth seventeen.”
I followed his gaze.
The booth was busy, crowded with customers examining jars and bottles and bundles of dried herbs. A hand-painted sign read Persephone’s Garden in elegant script. Professional. Well-organized. The kind of setup that took years to build.
And behind the counter stood a woman.
Golden hair pulled back in a loose braid. Soft gray sweater and a long flowing skirt. She moved with quiet efficiency, answering questions and wrapping products and smiling at customers with genuine warmth.
Beautiful.
That was my first thought.
My second thought was more tactical. She was comfortable here.
In her element. This was her territory, and she knew every inch of it.
The way she positioned herself. The way she tracked movement in the crowd even while focused on a customer.
The way her body language shifted subtly depending on who approached.
She was always assessing. Always calculating.
Just like Apollo’s mother used to do.
Fuck.
I felt Apollo tense in the wheelchair. Felt his breathing change. Becoming shallow and quick, like he was trying not to hyperventilate.
“You’ve already met her,” I said quietly, keeping my voice level. “Apollo. Look at me.”
He dragged his eyes away from the booth and they met mine. His hands were shaking on the wheelchair’s arms.
“What if I’m wrong?” The words came out fractured. Desperate.
“Then we walk away and never speak of it again.” I let that settle between us for a beat. His jaw clenched. Unclenched. His throat worked as he swallowed hard, fighting for control. “But you’re not wrong. You know you’re not.”
He nodded once. Twice. Like his body was moving independent of his mind, like he was trying to convince his muscles to cooperate with what his brain already knew was true.
I pushed the wheelchair closer, navigating through the crowd with practiced ease. People moved out of the way when they saw us coming. The wheelchair created space. Made people uncomfortable enough to step aside.
We were twenty feet away when I saw him.
Hades.
Standing behind Lettie with his hand at her back. Possessive. Protective. His eyes locked on us with an intensity that made my gut clench.
He knew why we were here.
And he wasn’t happy about it.
I didn’t blame him. If Apollo was right, Hades had just claimed his brother’s sister as his old lady without knowing who she really was. That kind of complication could tear a club apart.
But that wasn’t my problem.
My problem was the woman behind the counter who might be my daughter.
We reached the booth. I positioned Apollo’s wheelchair at an angle that gave him a clear view of Lettie while keeping us out of the main flow of traffic.
Apollo’s face lit up the moment he saw her. “Lettie.” Her name came out soft, almost reverent. “I wanted you to meet my dad.”
Lettie looked up from arranging jars on the shelf. Her entire expression shifted when she saw Apollo. Genuine warmth flooded her features. The kind of softness that made her look younger, kinder. Like the version of herself she showed to people she trusted.
“Apollo.” She smiled, and it reached her eyes. “I’m so glad you came by.”
She moved around the space with easy grace, her attention settling on me with open curiosity. No wariness. No calculation. Just a woman meeting someone important to someone she cared about.
“This is my dad, Rykard,” Apollo said, his voice steadier now. Hopeful.
“It’s so nice to meet you,” Lettie said, extending her hand. “Apollo’s told me about you. I’m Violet, but everyone calls me Lettie.”
I took her hand. Warm. Soft. Real.
And the world stopped.
Her eyes. Christ, her eyes were exactly like her mother’s.
No.
Not now.
I held her hand a beat too long, and I saw the flicker of confusion cross her face before she gently withdrew.
“Your products are beautiful,” I managed. My voice sounded strange. Distant. Like it was coming from someone else’s body.
“Thank you.” She gestured to the booth with obvious pride. “Everything’s handmade. Organic ingredients. I grow most of the herbs myself.”
Apollo watched us both. Waiting. Hoping for something I wasn’t ready to give.
Smart kid. Methodical, too. Just like his sister.
Then I saw her.
The woman sitting in the folding chair at the back of the booth. My breath stopped. The world tilted sideways and I had to grip the handles of Apollo’s wheelchair to keep from staggering.
No.
No fucking way.
But it was her.
Older. Grayer. Heavier. But unmistakably her.
Claire.
My wife’s best friend. The woman who’d been at our house the day Colette disappeared. The woman who’d had access to everything, who’d known where Colette slept, known our routines, known exactly when we’d be vulnerable.
The infertile woman who’d cried on my wife’s shoulder about never being able to have children of her own.
The woman who’d disappeared two weeks after Colette vanished, with some bullshit excuse about not being able to handle our grief.
Claire fucking Morrison.
Sitting ten feet away from me. Raising my daughter as her own child.
The recognition knocked the air from my lungs. As if someone had reached into my chest and squeezed my heart until it stopped beating.
Twenty-three years.
Twenty-three years of searching. Of following leads that went nowhere. Of watching Apollo destroy himself with guilt and obsession. Of wondering if Colette was dead or alive or suffering somewhere we couldn’t reach her.
And she’d been with her the whole time.
My breath stopped. The world tilted sideways.
She’d been here.
Two miles from the clubhouse.
Hidden in plain sight by a woman I’d trusted. A woman my wife had loved like a sister.
“Claire.”
The name came out of my mouth before I could stop it. Loud enough to cut through the festival noise. Loud enough to make Lettie’s hands still on the jar she was holding.
The woman in the chair froze.
Her eyes found mine across the distance.
And I saw it.
Recognition. Fear. Calculation.
She knew I’d found her.
“Dad?” Apollo’s voice was confused and urgent. “What—”
“That’s Claire Morrison,” I said. My voice was flat. Dead. The kind of calm that came before violence. “Your mother’s best friend. The woman who was there when everything happened.”
Silence crashed down around us.
Lettie turned slowly, her face pale, her eyes moving between me and the woman she thought was her mother.
Hades moved. His body shifted to put himself between Lettie and the threat he couldn’t yet see but knew was coming.
Apollo made a broken sound, like something inside him had finally shattered after holding together for decades.
“No,” Lettie whispered. “No, that’s not... her name is Carol. Carol Foster. She’s my mother.”
“Her name is Claire Morrison,” I said. Each word was precise. Clinical. Because if I let emotion in, I’d kill her right here in front of everyone. “And she kidnapped my daughter.”
The festival continued around us. People laughing. Children screaming. Music playing from speakers somewhere down the street. The smell of kettle corn and barbecue and too many bodies pressed together.
Normal.
Everything was normal except for the bomb that had just detonated in the center of booth seventeen.
Lettie’s face went from pale to white. Her hands trembled as she set the jar down carefully, like she was afraid if she moved too fast, everything would shatter.
“I don’t understand,” she said, her voice barely audible. “What are you talking about?”
“Lettie,” Apollo said, his voice breaking on her name. “Your real name is Colette. Colette Rush. You’re my sister.”
“No.” Lettie shook her head and backed up a step. “No, that’s not... I’m Violet Foster. I’ve always been Violet Foster.”
Hades’ arm wrapped around her waist, holding her up. Keeping her grounded while her entire world restructured around the truth.
“He called you Lettie,” I continued. “Said Colette was too stuffy for a baby.”
“Stop.” Lettie’s voice was stronger now. Angry. “Stop talking. This isn’t... you’re wrong. You have to be wrong.”
But she was looking at Claire.
And Claire was looking back with an expression I recognized.
Guilt.
“Mom?” Lettie’s voice cracked on the word. “Tell them they’re wrong. Tell them—”
Claire shook her head, eyes wild now. Desperate. “No.”
Hades’ arm tightened around Lettie. Protective. Possessive. Ready to tear through anyone who tried to hurt her, even if that person was standing three feet away holding lemonade.
I stepped forward, then stopped myself. Every instinct I had screamed to grab my daughter and never let go. Every bit of sense I had left told me not to become one more person taking choices from her.
“You were her best friend,” I said to Claire, my voice shaking with everything I wanted to do to her. With the violence I was barely holding back. With the need to make her hurt the way she’d made us hurt. “You were fucking family.”
Lettie’s breath caught.
Sharp.
Audible.
The sound of something inside her cracking.
“You were in my house,” I said. My voice was low now. Deadly. The kind of voice that came before men did things they couldn’t take back. “You held my little girl. You knew our routines. You knew when my wife took her to the park. You knew which door stuck. You knew where we kept the spare key.”
Claire’s face twisted. Not with guilt. With something uglier. Something defensive. “You don’t understand.”
A laugh tore out of me, ugly and broken. Acidic. The sound that came from a place where grief and rage had fucked each other raw for years. “I don’t understand?”
People around the booth had gone quiet. The festival still moved beyond us, but this space had become something else. A crater. A grave opening. A decades-old wound splitting wide in broad daylight.
My hands shook on the arms of the wheelchair. “You took her.”
Claire’s gaze snapped to me.
For one second, something hateful flashed in her eyes. Something vicious and unrepentant. “You left her alone.”
Hades lunged.
Only, Lettie’s sharp inhale stopped him.
Not because it calmed him.
Because it reminded him, she was in his arms.
He held still, but violence lived in every line of his body. In the set of his jaw. In the way his muscles coiled. In the promise written across his face that if Claire said one more fucking word, he’d kill her where she stood.
Ford looked like she’d carved him open.
I knew why.
Because that was the sentence he’d given himself since he was fourteen.
You left her alone.
Fourteen years old, and he’d made himself the villain because a grown woman had stolen his sister and let him carry the guilt.
I turned on Claire with a hatred so clean it almost steadied me. Focused me. Gave me something to aim at that wasn’t my own failure. “She belonged to us.”
“She was alone,” Claire hissed, eyes cutting to Lettie. “And she needed me.”
“No,” I said. The word came out flat. Final. “You needed her.”
The words landed.
Truth always did.
Lettie made a small, broken sound from deep inside where hope had lived before reality killed it.
I looked at her then, and whatever rage I’d been carrying cracked under the sight of her face.
She was staring at the woman she’d called mother like the ground had vanished beneath her feet.
Like everything she’d known had just been revealed as a lie.
Hades held her upright, his mouth near her temple, speaking words too low for me to hear.
My daughter.
My baby.
Alive and breaking in front of me.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
Her eyes met mine.
I saw the exact second she believed me.
Not understood.
Believed.
Some truths didn’t need proof when blood had already recognized blood. When instinct had already spoken. When the body knew what the mind hadn’t caught up to yet.
Her lips trembled. “Rykard?”
Not Dad.
Not Father.
Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
Still, my name in her voice felt like the first breath after drowning. Like air after suffocation. Like proof that she was real and alive and standing in front of me.
“Yes,” I said, and my own voice broke. Shattered. Came apart in a way I hadn’t let it in too damn long. “Yeah, sweetheart. I’m right here.”
Apollo bowed his head, shoulders shaking once before he forced himself still. Before he locked it down the way he’d been locking it down since he was fourteen. Before he shattered silently.
But completely.
Lettie Foster was Colette Rush.
And the woman she called Mother was the reason we’d mourned a daughter who’d never died. The reason we’d grieved a child who’d been alive the whole damn time.