My attention snapped back to the bed, where satisfaction filled my father’s smile. Physically weak though he may be, he was back in control, and he knew it.

“She wrote it when you were born,” he said, each word tumbling through me like boulders in an avalanche. “She wanted to give it to you on your twenty-first birthday.”

Static crackled in my ears until the implications of what he was saying crashed down around me and detonated. Mushroom clouds billowed into the air, robbing me of breath.

Everything of hers had been destroyed in the fire—photos, clothing, mementos. Anything that could’ve reminded me of her, gone.

But if she wrote me a letter…my father wouldn’t have mentioned it unless it was intact. And if it was intact, it meant a piece of her lived on.

I swallowed the emotion burning in my throat. “It’s far past my twenty-first birthday.”

“I didn’t remember it. It was so long ago.” His voice was fading. We didn’t have long before he went under again, but I needed to know about the letter. How had it not burned alongside the rest of her things? Where was it? Most importantly, what was in it?

“She kept it in one of our safes.” Another wheezing breath. “Santos found it when he was tidying up my affairs.”

Santos was our family lawyer.

The safe explained why the letter was intact, but it gave rise to another host of questions.

“When did he find it?” I asked quietly.

How long had my father been keeping it from me, and why was he choosing to tell me now?

He averted his gaze. “Top drawer of my desk,” he rasped. His eyes drooped closed, and his breathing steadied into a slower rhythm.

Foreboding sank its teeth into me as I stared at his prone form. He was skin and bones, so frail I could snap him in half with one hand, but in true Alberto Castillo form, he exerted undue control over me even from his deathbed.

The room was eerily quiet despite the monitors, and a cold sensation trailed after me when I finally turned and walked out.

My family had dispersed from the hall, tired of waiting. Only Dr. Cruz and Sloane remained outside the door.

“I’ll check on your father,” the doctor said, astute enough to pick up on my volatile mood. He slipped into the room, and the door closed behind him with a soft click.

Concern shadowed Sloane’s face. She opened her mouth, but I brushed past her before she could get a word out.

A strange underwater silence bloomed in the hall, muffling every noise except the thud of my footsteps.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

The hall split into opposite directions at the end. The left led to my bedroom; the right led to my father’s study.

I should retreat to my room. I wasn’t in the right headspace for reading the letter, and a part of me worried there was no letter. I wouldn’t put it past my father to play some sick game where he got my hopes up only to crush them.

I swung left and made it two steps before morbid curiosity pressed replay on my father’s confession.

Your mother left you a letter. Top drawer of my desk.

I came to a halt and squeezed my eyes shut. Dammit.

If I were smart, I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of taking the bait. But this was my chance to potentially hold a piece of my mother again, and even if he was lying, I had to know.

I backtracked to the other end of the hall and into his office. The top drawer was unlocked, and a sticky mess of dread, anticipation, and anxiety roiled my stomach as I slid it open.

The first thing I saw was a gold pocket watch. Beneath it, a yellowing envelope sat tucked against the dark wood.

I unsealed it with a shaky hand, smoothed out the letter inside…and there it was. A page filled with my mother’s flowing script.

My throat constricted.

Emotion swept through me, quick and violent as a summer storm, but relief didn’t get a chance to settle before I started reading.

It was only then that I understood exactly why my father had told me about the letter.

CHAPTER 14

Sloane

After his brief spell of lucidity on Thursday, Alberto’s condition took a turn for the worse. He slipped into a coma the day after, and this time, the doctor appeared less optimistic about his chances of surviving the next forty-eight hours.

Both the family and I started preparing for the worst. While I monitored the media excessively for leaks, a priest arrived to be on hand for last rites, and Xavier’s family ambushed the lawyer every time he stepped foot inside the house. Sometimes, at night, I swore I heard the ghostly wail of someone crying.

Since I wasn’t a superstitious person, I attributed it to the wind. I also didn’t mind the busywork. It kept my mind off my father’s email, which I’d deleted without reply.

Xavier himself didn’t return to his father’s side. I didn’t know what they’d talked about when Alberto was awake, but he’d barely left his room since then. Even an offer to watch a rom-com and drink every time the quirky female lead did something klutzy didn’t rouse him from his seclusion.

By Saturday, I’d had enough. It was time to take matters into my own hands.

I strode down the hall and stopped in front of Xavier’s room. I’d convinced the head housekeeper to lend me her master key, but a pinch of apprehension needled me when I knocked and didn’t get a reply.

I hadn’t expected one, but that didn’t stop my mind from conjuring the worst images of what lay beyond the door.

Piles of empty bottles and filth. Drugs. Xavier overdosed and dead.

I’d never known him to dabble in drugs, but there was a first time for everything.

The apprehension swelled as I inserted the key into the knob.

One twist and the door opened, revealing…

What the hell?

My mouth parted at the scene before me. It wasn’t the crisp, perfectly made bed or the curtains thrown wide over the windows that shocked me. It wasn’t even the lack of visible food and alcohol.

It was the sight of Xavier…drawing?

He sat by the window, his focus unwavering despite my entrance. The easel in front of him held a large sheet of paper covered with what looked like a sketch of a living room. Beside him, a small mountain of crumpled paper balls littered the ground. He looked remarkably put together for someone I’d been convinced was in the throes of self-destruction minutes ago. His hair gleamed thick and glossy in the sunlight; a stray lock fell over his eye, brushing his cheekbone and softening the bold lines of his face. He wore a plain gray T-shirt and jeans that molded to his body like they were made for him, and his biceps flexed with every swoop and curve of his pencil.