"Oh, Poppy." Her voice breaks. She pulls me into her arms, holding me the way she used to when I was small—like she could protect me from everything just by holding on tight enough.
"What are you going to do?" she asks against my hair.
"I don't know."
"You could leave. Disappear, like I did. Raise the baby somewhere far away from him, from all of this—"
"I'm not you, Mom." I pull back, meeting her eyes. "I can't spend my life running. I need to face this. I need to decide for myself what I want."
"And what do you want?"
The question hangs between us, enormous and unanswerable.
"I want..." I hesitate, searching for words that feel true. "I want to stop being afraid. I want to stop letting other people control my choices. I want to look at my life and know that I chose it—all of it, the good and the bad."
"Even if that means staying with a man from that world? From the Ambrose family?"
"Even then." I take her hands. "You spent twenty-five years running, Mom. You lived in fear, always looking over your shoulder, never able to build a real life. I don't want that for myself. I don't want that for my child."
She's crying again—silent tears that track down her cheeks. "I was trying to protect you."
"I know. And I love you for it. But I'm not a child anymore. I need to protect myself now. And that means making my own choices, even if they're hard. Even if they're dangerous."
We sit together in the fading light, mother and daughter, both of us carrying the weight of Dwayne Thomas's legacy. He's been dead for twenty-five years, but his shadow still stretches over our lives—shaping our fears, our choices, our relationships.
Maybe it always will. Maybe some monsters never truly die.
But I'm done letting him control me. Done letting fear make my decisions.
Whatever comes next, I'll face it with my eyes open.
Chapter 32 - Gabriel
Zach looks smaller than I remembered.
He's on his knees in the wine cellar beneath the east wing—a room that hasn't held wine in decades, not since my father converted it for other purposes. The stone walls are thick enough to swallow screams. The drain in the center of the floor is original to the house, but the slight slope that feeds into it was added later.
My father taught me many things in this room. Tonight, I'll put those lessons to use one final time.
"Gabriel." Zach's voice is steady, but I can smell the fear beneath his composure. "I was wondering when you'd get around to this."
I circle him slowly, taking my time. James stands by the door, silent and watchful. He brought Zach in an hour ago—collected him from a motel outside the city where he'd been hiding since his little performance with Poppy.
Hiding. As if there's anywhere on this earth he could go that I wouldn't find him.
"You've been busy," I say. "Digging up old graves. Sharing secrets that weren't yours to share."
"The truth isn't a secret, Gabriel. It's just information people choose to bury."
"And you chose to unbury it. For her." I stop in front of him, looking down at the face I've known since childhood. We were never friends—the Brotherhood doesn't breed friendship—but we were peers. Fellow survivors of the same sick system. "Why?"
Zach laughs, a harsh sound that echoes off the stone. "Why? You're seriously asking me why?"
"I'm asking."
"Because you took everything from me." The composure cracks, revealing something raw underneath. "You killed Dwayne, and you thought that made you a hero. You thought you were saving us."
"I was saving myself."
