Chapter 8 - Ruth's Choice
August blamed himself.
That was what he did best.
By midnight, every man connected to him from Baltimore to Philadelphia knew Daniel had been taken.
Roads were watched.
Hotels checked.
Airports monitored.
Police contacts bribed.
August stood in his study beneath a wall of maps and photographs as if the right arrangement of pins could undo ten years.
Ruth watched him from the doorway.
"Sit down."
He ignored her.
"August."
"No."
"You're bleeding."
He looked down.
His palm had split where his cane had rubbed against burned skin.
He had not noticed.
Ruth took the cane from him.
He looked at her.
"Give it back."
"No."
"Ruth."
"You've been standing six hours."
"My brother has been kidnapped."
"And if your leg gives out, he'll still be kidnapped."
He stared.
She pointed toward the chair.
"Sit."
Three armed men in the room suddenly found the maps fascinating.
August sat.
Ruth cleaned his palm.
He flinched.
"Does that hurt?"
"No."
"Another terrible lie."
He watched her wrap the bandage.
"Why are you still here?"
Ruth looked up.
"What?"
"You were threatened. Your daughter was threatened. Men attacked the house."
"And?"
"You should leave."
"Do you want me to?"
"No."
The answer came too quickly.
Both went quiet.
August looked away.
Ruth tied the bandage.
"My ex-husband left because Poppy got sick."
August's eyes returned.
"He said he couldn't take it."
Ruth laughed softly.
"As though she had chosen it."
"What was his name?"
"Brian."
August filed it away with unsettling focus.
Ruth noticed.
"Don't kill him."
"I wasn't planning to."
"You looked like you were planning to."
"I was planning to dislike him."
"That's allowed."
A moment of warmth.
Then August's phone rang.
His face changed as he listened.
"Where?"
He stood despite Ruth's protest.
They had found the SUV.
Burned.
Empty.
Outside Wilmington.
Inside was Daniel's backpack.
And a message.
BRING THE GIRL.
Ruth read the photograph of the note twice.
"No."
August looked at her.
"No one is bringing Poppy anywhere."
Walter closed the study door.
Vincent wanted Poppy.
Why?
The answer emerged at three in the morning.
A DNA report.
August had ordered one from a drinking glass Poppy used after she first visited.
When Ruth discovered this, she nearly slapped him.
"You tested my child?"
"I needed to know something."
"What?"
August handed her the report.
Ruth read.
Her eyes moved across percentages she did not understand.
Then she reached the conclusion.
Possible biological relationship detected.
Ruth looked up.
"What does this mean?"
August's face was pale.
"Walter?"
The old man sat.
"Ruth, tell us about Poppy's father."
"Brian Brangan."
"Biological father?"
Ruth went still.
"Of course."
Walter waited.
Ruth's breathing changed.
"No."
August watched.
"No?"
Ruth sat slowly.
"Brian knew he wasn't."
Silence.
She had never told anyone this story.
"I was twenty."
She looked at her hands.
"I worked nights at a hotel bar in Richmond. One night after closing, I met a man."
August said nothing.
"His name was Ethan Vale."
August froze.
Walter whispered:
"Vale?"
Ruth looked up.
"You know it?"
August's face had emptied.
"My mother's family name was Vale."
Ruth continued, frightened now.
"Ethan said he had family in Baltimore but didn't speak to them. We were together three months."
"What happened?"
"He disappeared."
"When?"
"Seven years ago."
August walked toward the window.
Walter asked:
"Do you have a photograph?"
Ruth opened an old cloud folder on her phone.
There.
A young man beside a river.
Dark hair.
Gray eyes.
August stared.
His knees nearly failed.
"I know him."
Ruth's pulse hammered.
"Who?"
"My cousin."
"Ethan?"
"My mother's nephew."
Walter understood first.
"Then Poppy—"
"Is Howerin blood," August said.
Ruth stood.
"What does that matter?"
August turned.
"Everything."
His father had created a trust.
If August died without biological heirs, a portion of the Howerin holdings passed through his mother's bloodline.
Daniel qualified.
So did Ethan.
And Ethan's child.
Poppy.
Ruth felt sick.
"Vincent wants control."
August nodded.
"For years he believed Daniel was the only surviving claimant."
"And now Poppy."
"Yes."
"Where's Ethan?"
August looked at Walter.
Walter's face darkened.
"Missing seven years."
Ruth understood.
"You think Vincent killed him."
"No," August said. "I think Vincent found him first."
At dawn, a package arrived at the gate.
Inside was a phone.
It rang.
August answered on speaker.
Vincent's voice.
"Good morning."
August's face became lethal.
"If Daniel is hurt—"
"He's alive."
A muffled sound came through.
Then Daniel's voice.
"August?"
August gripped the desk.
"I'm here."
"Don't bring her."
A blow.
Daniel cried out.
Ruth covered her mouth.
Vincent returned.
"Bring Poppy to Warehouse Seven tonight."
August's eyes narrowed.
"No."
"Then your brother dies where he should have died ten years ago."
The line clicked dead.
Ruth looked at August.
"No."
He nodded.
"No."
But Ruth was already thinking.
Daniel was fifteen.
Poppy was six.
Vincent would never stop.
Not while either lived.
And for the first time in her life, Ruth understood why desperate people walked willingly toward dangerous places.
May you like
Because sometimes love did not ask whether you were afraid.
It only asked who you were willing to be afraid for.
