Page 113 of Kept

The unspoken words hang in the air.

But I need to face this. If I’m right, then everything will change.

And not even Enzo can stop it.

43 - Maverick

I’mpacingbackandforth in the hall like a caged animal when I finally hear the noise from Enzo’s bike.

Ryder’s footsteps pound down the stairs. “Are they back?”

My nod is short. It takes everything I have not to rush into the garage, but I hold myself back until the door swings open and Enzo saunters out, his hand on Zella’s back as she walks in, her fingers tugging at the sleeve of her dress.

I’m not sure what to expect, but when she sees me, she darts forward, burying her face in my chest. “Maverick.”

Exhaling, I wrap my arms around her, my hand cupping the back of her head. “Are you alright?”

She nods into my shirt. “Enzo took me for… some fresh air.”

I bet he did. I narrow my eyes at him, and he shrugs.

“It helped.” Zella swallows as she shifts back, pushing her hair away from her face. Her braid is coming undone, long tendrils of gold falling past her shoulders as she looks between us all. Her face creases in hesitation, but she straightens her shoulders. “I think… I think we need to talk.”

“Okay,” I say softly. “Whatever you need.”

Her feet move, and she glances back as we start to follow. “I just need to get something. Will you wait for me? In the sitting room?”

“Of course.” Ryder, Enzo and I filter into the room as she darts up the stairs, returning a few minutes later and glancing at where we’re all sat. She comes to sit next to me on the couch, curling herself into a corner and taking a deep breath.

Silence stretches into minutes as we wait, all three of us still as Zella’s expression barely flickers. Finally, she looks up at us, and the forlorn expression on her face makes my chest ache. “Zella.”

I reach for her, but she shakes her head, holding her hand up. “No, I’m alright. I just… needed to work through some of the thoughts in my head.”

My fingers curl in on themselves as she straightens. Her skin is pale, her green eyes shadowed as she begins to speak.

“I don’t remember my parents,” she says quietly. “I don’t remember anything, really. Not when I was a child.”

I nod, knowing this from the discussions we’ve had previously.

She flips open the sketchbook in her hands, staring down at the marks on the page. “I asked Ethan a few days before I left how he managed when I was little, since he doesn’t like to be touched. He told me I had a nursemaid called Maria. He’d never mentioned her to me before.”

My whole body jerks, and her eyes flick to me. “Sorry,” I say hoarsely.

But I recognise that name.

Holding my tongue, I wait for Zella to bring her thoughts together. The little threads to a mystery two decades old.

She looks back down to the page. “Around the same time, I sketched something different to anything I’d drawn before. I always struggled to draw anything I’d never seen, but this…,”

She holds the book out to me. “It just came so naturally,” she whispers. “Like it was always there, inside my head.”

My fingers shake as I reach for the page. I have my suspicions, but shock still steals my breath as I look down at Maria Cooper’s face. I’d know it anywhere.

I’ve looked at that face every day for more than ten years.

It’s a dangerous thing, hope. Almost as dangerous as the absence of it. When you feel hope, opportunities are endless. But as hope begins to fade, those opportunities become like delicate threads. Each one slowly snipped away, until you’re left with nothing.

This case consumed my father, pushed him to open up the company we run today, to spend every spare moment searching for answers on behalf of his best friend.

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