Chapter 6 - THE BROTHER AT MY DOOR
Adrian arrived at sunrise carrying coffee.
That was my brother.
Always the right prop.
Flowers after an argument. A bottle after a deal. Coffee when he needed to look like the person who stayed.
He stopped when he saw Ruiz outside Lena’s room.
“Roman. Jesus. Mom called.”
“What did she say?”
“That someone brought a child to the gala. That you were upset.”
“A child.”
He looked through the glass.
Sophie was asleep against Lena’s side.
His face changed.
Not much.
Enough.
“Is that—”
“Yes.”
He put the coffee on a windowsill.
“I don’t understand.”
“Lena says you took her to Briar House.”
Adrian looked at Ruiz.
“I’d prefer to have counsel present.”
There it was.
No outrage.
No confusion.
Just a door closing.
Ruiz nodded.
“That’s your right.”
I stepped closer.
“Was she crying?”
“Roman.”
“When you took her there. Was she holding our daughter?”
He rubbed a hand over his mouth.
“You weren’t there.”
“I was working.”
“She was saying things about Mom. About Dad. She wasn’t sleeping.”
“She had a newborn.”
“Mom said she needed help.”
“And three years later?”
His eyes dropped.
I wanted to hit him.
The wanting frightened me less than how easy it would have been.
Marcus appeared beside me.
“Your daughter can see the hallway.”
I turned.
Sophie was awake.
Watching.
I stepped back.
Adrian left without his coffee.
June arrived later with a plastic grocery bag containing Lena’s few belongings.
Two sweaters.
A paperback with no cover.
Sophie’s spare underwear.
A photograph folded until the corners were soft.
It showed me asleep on our old couch, wearing a red flannel shirt, newborn Sophie tucked against my chest.
“That’s how she knew you,” June said.
I looked toward the room.
Lena was brushing Sophie’s hair with her fingers.
“The shirt was mine.”
“She hid it before they took the rest.”
June hesitated.
“Lena sewed that pocket months ago. She said if a chance came, the key had to leave first.”
“What does it open?”
“I don’t know.”
Lena did.
When Sophie fell asleep again, she asked for paper.
Her hand shook as she wrote an address.
A storage facility across the river.
“Unit nineteen,” she said. “Under my maiden name.”
“What’s there?”
“Copies.”
“Of the invoices?”
She looked at me.
“Those too.”
May you like
Then she glanced toward the hallway where my brother had stood.
“Your father called me the night before he died.”
