Page 52 of Property of Chaos

“Is it true?”

Marianna re-enters the room, a stone tray between her hands with three tall glasses atop. Water, wine for her, and juice for me. “Here you go, ladies.” She sets the tray on the table and then studies each of us in turn. “I interrupted the crucial stuff, didn’t I?”

“It’s okay.” I take the juice and wet my mouth with a sip. The apple sours on my tongue.

Evelyn sets the letter beside the tray and accepts the water Marianna passes over. “Thank you.”

The room falls silent while Marianna drags an ottoman over and settles to the side between us. Her shoulders sag. “You probably don’t want me here. I should leave. I’m sorry.”

“No. Stay.” I need the moral support.

“I’ve got nothing to hide,” Evelyn offers. “I wouldn’t have come when you messaged me if I didn’t want to discuss him publicly.” Her brow dives. “That story about being his mistress wasn’t true, right?”

Marianna smiles apologetically. “No. Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” She glances my way. “You had every right to be cautious.” Her throat bobs, and she turns the glassware in her hands. “To answer your question, Vanessa, yes. It’s true.” Her voice drops to barely above a whisper. “Your mother passed away.”

My head swims. I stare at the table’s edge and focus on the simple fucking task of not falling over.She’s gone.All the hope I’d had that one day she’d leave him and we could talk it all out—vanished. The fucking book closed without me reading the final chapter, and now he wants to throw it in the goddamn fire.

“When?” I set the juice down on the table.

“Six months ago.” Evelyn swallows. “He sent someone to my house. They waited for me to open the door, and then they told me she’d died and turned heel. I didn’t know how until I read that letter.” She gestures to the infernal pages.

“Was there a funeral?” Please, let the asshole at least have given her that.

“I don’t know.” Evelyn sips the water. “I would think so. It would suit his agenda.”

“I searched online,” Marianna explains. “I couldn’t find any mention of her.”

“There wouldn’t be.” My aunt leans forward to set her drink down. “He doesn’t believe in the free press. If there were news, it’d be curated on his website.”

“Oh.” Marianna’s hands tighten in her lap, legs tucked to one side.

I look away from the reminder of that life—of how we were trained to sit as ‘real ladies’. The reminder of how my legs would ache when forced to hold the position for hours while he held an audience of his peers.

My mother is gone.And I don’t honestly know how I feel about that. There’s an absence of something, but it’s not love.

It’s just… possibility. The dream of what she could have been. The hope she one day would be.

“You okay, babe?” Marianna ducks her head, concern evident in the peak of her brow.

I snap my eyes into focus and nod. “I think so.” Probably meltdown good and proper later when there’s nobody else around, but what’s new? “Why do you think he’d send me that?” I nod toward the discarded letter. “And why now? After so long?”

Evelyn draws a deep breath, her gaze on it also. “I’m not sure, but it could have something to do with your brother.”

Marianna’s eyebrows shoot skyward. “You have a brother?”

I stare at the floor. “Yeah.” And he’s just likehim.

“What do you mean?” Marianna asks, shifting her attention to Evelyn. “What’s happened?”

I feel my aunt’s gaze on me and lock on to the vision of my boots before me, unable to stomach her pity.

“Gage went missing two months ago.”

My head jerks up. “What?”

Evelyn stares back at me impassively. “You don’t keep up with anything about them, do you?”

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