Chapter 55 Nico
NICO
It didn’t take long before the house fire hit the news.
We heard it on a radio traffic report as we drove back home.
The drive was mostly in silence as we both tried to process what we’d seen and discovered at the house.
I had to admit, I was fairly freaked out by the whole experience.
The house had been creepy, and having the shadowy stranger appear and fuck with us at the end was enough to send goosebumps rising all over my skin.
I glanced over at Maddy. She was looking through the windshield, a look of worried concentration on her face.
The envelope from the safe was lying flat on her thighs—her fingers curled tightly around it.
She hadn’t even attempted to open it. My own curiosity was screaming to know what was in there, but I knew Maddy was going through a lot, and she didn’t need me pressuring her to open it.
She would need to do it in her own time.
“Are you hungry?” I asked.
Maddy blinked and turned to me. “Not really, but we can stop if you are.”
“No, it’s fine. I do need gas, though, so I may grab a snack at the gas station.”
“Okay.”
I reached over and squeezed her thigh reassuringly, then took her hand in mine.
Maddy sighed and relaxed a little bit. I needed to make sure she knew I was there for her.
With everything she was going through, it was the least I could do.
Honestly, it was pretty much the only thing I could do.
If I’d gone through as much as she had and discovered so many earth-shattering revelations, I probably wouldn’t have held up nearly as well as she was.
Still, at some point, we would have to open the envelope.
By the time we finally got home, Maddy looked ready to pass out. It was still early afternoon, but I could tell by looking at her that she desperately needed a nap.
“Let’s get you inside and into bed. You can sleep for a couple of hours.”
Maddy opened her car door and nodded. “That sounds great.”
I led her up to the bedroom and helped her get her shoes and pants off before tucking her in. I kissed her forehead once and then her lips. “Rest up. I love you.”
“Love you too.” As Maddy said it, her eyes flicked to the nightstand where the envelope sat.
I didn’t say anything about it. Instead, I turned the light off and closed her door.
As I headed back downstairs, I pulled out my phone and texted Luis, Sebastian, and Dad.
I wanted them to all come over so I could tell them exactly what had gone down when we were in Naples.
It was important for me to keep my inner circle in the loop.
The whole situation was becoming overwhelming.
There was no way to know if any of them would have any major insight, but if nothing else, it would feel good to share the burden of knowledge with them.
I wished Felipe could be there, but he was still in Alabama.
Hopefully, his trip wouldn’t be for naught.
I headed outside and got our bags out of the car, and Dad was already walking up the street toward my house. It hadn’t taken him long to get my text.
“Well, you look like a wrung-out dish towel, boy,” Dad said as he stepped up and leaned on my car.
I laughed ruefully. “Good to know I look exactly like I feel.”
“Bad?”
Right to the point—my father was good at cutting through the shit. I gave him a one-shouldered shrug. “We learned a lot, but now we have more questions. It seems like the way it always goes.”
“Is Maddy okay?” Dad asked, glancing up at the house.
“She’s taking a nap. It was an intense trip. She needs time to decompress. I’ll tell you everything once the guys get here.”
“Let me help with that.” Dad grabbed the other suitcase and followed me inside.
Ten minutes later, we were sitting around the coffee table in my living room. My phone was on the table, and Luis was on speaker. He was still doing research in Tampa. Having them all there as backup made me feel better.
“Okay, give us the dirt,” Sebastian said.
“Yeah, the build-up is killing me,” Luis said, his voice electronically hollow coming from the phone. “What did you find at that house?”
“Maddy’s parents’ house?” Dad asked.
“No, the other one,” Luis said. “The address I found for you.”
“Hang on,” I said. “We’ll get to that. The trip was definitely worth it. We found a lot.”
Dad sat forward. “Maddy’s birth mother?”
I nodded. “We went to her adoptive parents’ house first. The living room had been ransacked when her parents were taken. It was not a good scene—that’s all I’ll say about that.
“Maddy and I searched the place top to bottom and found some letters her birth mother had sent her. These letters went all the way up until she was eleven years old.”
“So the whole ‘your mother died right after she gave you up’ was another fucking lie Kenneth told us?” Luis asked.
“Basically, yeah. Pretty sure he helped her disappear, and even at the end, he held that information close. He may not have been loyal to us, but he was goddamned loyal to Gabriella. Took her secret to the grave. Anyway, in the very last letter, she signed her initials. M and S. I found a bunch of old prescription scripts for the suppressant pills Maddy’s adoptive parents had given her. Same exact initials.”
“Hang on.” Sebastian sat forward, looking beyond confused. “The doctor’s initials, you mean?”
I nodded at him grimly. “Yup.”
“Maybe I’m not following,” Sebastian said, glancing between the two of us. “Did this doctor and the mother have the same initials?”
“They are one and the same. Right?” Dad asked.
“Exactly,” I said. “Apparently, Kenneth helped Maddy’s birth mother get a whole new identity: plastic surgery, new name, school records—the whole nine yards. She was Maddy’s pediatrician from the time she was three or four years old, maybe earlier.”
“What the fuck?” Sebastian flopped back onto the couch with both hands on his head. “She was right there the whole time?”
“Right,” I went on. “So, she spent years watching her during check-ups and stuff and provided her parents with the drugs to keep her wolf suppressed. Once we had that, it was easy to find her alias. Malia Stanford, MD. Luis did a search and got us her address. We went straight there the next day—the place hasn't been lived in for years. Looked like she’d run last minute. There was a whole shrine to Maddy. Pictures that either she or Kenneth had taken through her whole life. Kindergarten, preschool, college, and everything in between.”
“Creepy,” Sebastian said.
“Not creepy,” Dad said, giving Sebastian a withering look.
“The woman gave away a baby she desperately wanted to keep. It had to be heartbreaking to give away your child to keep her safe. I couldn’t imagine living my whole life without my boys.
The heartache? The sadness? A few pictures here and there were probably all that kept her from a depression so deep it could have led to madness or even suicide.
Never underappreciate the power of the love of a mother for her child. ”
“Sorry,” Sebastian murmured, his cheeks going red.
“The house?” Luis said, nudging the conversation back to my story.
“Yeah, we went inside to find the pictures and a filing cabinet. It was full of children’s medical charts.
Maddy’s birth mother had been testing all kinds of kids.
DNA tests. From what we saw, she was trying to cross-reference a single genetic marker in Maddy’s DNA with dozens of other kids.
No idea why that marker is significant though.
It has to have something to do with Edemas’s bloodline.
Nothing else in the house, but then someone snuck in while we were there, moved a painting off the wall, and opened a hidden wall safe. ”
“While you were inside the house?” Luis asked, amazed by the audacity.
“Yeah. When they left, they slammed the door. They wanted us to know they’d been there. This person wanted us to find the safe. There was a thick envelope and a letter written by Maddy’s birth mother. We took it and got the hell out of there.
“Once we were in the car, we saw whoever it was running through the woods away from the house. I was going to go after them, but they’d set the fucking house on fire. We had to leave before God and everybody showed up asking us why we were there. Then we came back home.”
“Well? What’s in the damned envelope?” Sebastian asked once my story was over.
“No idea.”
“What?” Luis asked, incredulous.
“We haven’t opened it yet. It’s not my property.
It was left for Maddy. She needs to be the one to open it.
We have to be patient. She’s been through so much, and I don’t want to force her into something else until she’s had time to process what’s already happened.
Whatever is in that envelope might be another world-shaking revelation. ”
“Exactly,” Sebastian said. “It might be important. She’s only got like ten or twelve days until the next full moon. Shouldn’t we… I don’t know… not demand her to, but give her a little nudge toward opening it?”
I held my hand up to calm them all down. “I’m not an idiot. If it takes more than a day or two, I’ll say something. Trust me.”
“This person who burned the house down?” Dad asked. “Did you get a look at them?”
“Not very good. They were already pretty deep into the woods when Maddy spotted them,” I said.
“I can try to see if there are any street cameras nearby. Maybe I could attempt to hack into their feed and get a better look,” Luis said.
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” I said. “I’ve got a pretty good hunch that it was her birth mother. Only she and Kenneth would have known about that safe, and Kenneth is dead. It had to be her. She’s still keeping herself hidden for some reason.”
My phone rang, and the screen said that it was Felipe. I stood, snatching the phone off the table. “Luis, I’ll call you back. Felipe is calling. Maybe he has news.”
“Okay, let me know,” Luis said and disconnected.
“Felipe? It’s Nico.”