Chapter 12 - The Burning House
The helicopter landed in a field two hundred yards from the farmhouse.
Smoke rolled across the grass.
Flames had already consumed the porch and part of the lower floor. The local fire department was still six minutes away.
Marcus grabbed my arm.
“We wait for equipment.”
“No.”
“The structure could collapse.”
“Elena is inside.”
“So is your mother, but you help neither of them by dying in the hallway.”
Rosa emerged from the helicopter carrying two emergency breathing masks.
“I’m going with him.”
“No,” Marcus said.
She handed me one mask.
“Elena may be frightened when she sees Gabriel. She has been told he abandoned her.”
Marcus cursed.
Then he gave us fire-resistant coats from the aircraft’s emergency kit.
“Two minutes. If the stairs are gone, you come out.”
We entered through a side window.
Heat struck like a physical force.
The kitchen ceiling burned above us. Smoke erased the far wall.
“Elena!” I shouted.
No answer.
Rosa pointed toward a narrow service staircase.
We climbed.
Halfway up, a beam crashed behind us.
The upper hallway was filled with smoke.
A woman coughed behind the first door.
I kicked it open.
My mother stood near the window holding a wet blanket over Elena’s shoulders.
For one impossible moment, I was nine years old again.
Sofia Moretti looked older, but unmistakable. Silver hair. Strong dark eyes. The same scar beneath her chin.
“Gabriel,” she whispered.
Elena turned.
Her face was thinner than I remembered. A pale scar crossed her forehead. Her hair had grown long and gray at the temples.
She stared at me without recognition.
Then she saw Rosa.
“Elena,” Rosa said softly.
Elena’s mouth opened.
“Rosa?”
The sound nearly broke me.
“Yes. It’s me.”
My mother pointed toward the hallway.
“We have to move.”
Elena resisted when I approached.
“No.”
“It’s Gabriel,” Rosa told her.
Elena shook her head.
“Samuel said Gabriel chose her.”
“He lied,” I said.
She stared at me.
I wanted to touch her, but I did not.
“You have two daughters,” I said. “Daniela and Martina. Daniela reads beneath the dining-room table when she is angry. Martina sleeps with a rabbit named Captain Button even though she tells everyone she stopped.”
Elena’s eyes filled.
“You remember pancakes shaped like stars. You sing off-key when you cook. You hate white roses because they remind you of funerals.”
“Gabriel?”
“Yes.”
The ceiling cracked.
Rosa grabbed Elena’s hand.
“We need to go.”
We wrapped wet cloth around their faces and entered the hallway.
The stairs were burning.
Marcus’s voice came through my earpiece.
“East window. Fire crew has ladders in place.”
We moved toward the rear bedroom.
A figure emerged through the smoke.
Samuel.
His shirt was soaked in blood from a wound near his side. He held a gun.
My mother stepped in front of Elena.
Samuel laughed weakly.
“Still protecting everyone, Sofia?”
“You should have died in the marsh,” she said.
“You first.”
He aimed at her.
I struck his arm as he fired.
The bullet shattered the window.
We crashed against the wall.
Samuel was injured, but desperation made him strong.
He drove the gun into my ribs.
“You inherited everything,” he hissed. “Your father’s name. His company. His protection.”
“You murdered him too?”
“Your father deserved worse.”
He raised the weapon.
Rosa hit him with a burning piece of wood.
Samuel screamed and turned.
I drove him through the broken bedroom door.
The floor collapsed beneath him.
He caught the edge with one hand.
Fire roared below.
For one second, I saw Patricia hanging from the railing at Blackwater.
I saw Isabella reaching down despite everything.
I reached for Samuel.
He stared at my hand.
“Help me.”
“Tell me why my mother disappeared.”
“Gabriel!” Marcus shouted through the earpiece. “Get out!”
Samuel’s grip slipped.
“Tell me.”
He laughed.
“She disappeared because she learned what your father really was.”
“What does that mean?”
“Ask her who started the fire that supposedly killed Isabella.”
My mother stood behind me.
Her face changed.
Samuel looked at her and smiled.
Then the floor gave way.
He fell into the flames.
I turned toward Sofia.
“Did you start the fire?”
“Not now.”
“Did you?”
She grabbed my face with both hands.
“If you want answers, survive long enough to hear them.”
Firefighters reached the window.
We helped Elena out first.
Then Rosa.
My mother followed.
I was last.
The bedroom collapsed seconds after I stepped onto the ladder.
Outside, medics examined Elena.
She sat wrapped in a blanket, staring at the flames.
I approached slowly.
She looked at me.
“I know your eyes,” she said.
I knelt.
“We have been looking for you.”
“Samuel said you stopped.”
“He lied.”
“He showed me photographs of Patricia with the girls.”
“She manipulated us.”
Elena touched the wedding ring still hanging from a chain around her neck.
“I tried to come home.”
“I know.”
“I couldn’t remember the address.”
“You survived. That is enough.”
She studied my face.
“Are the girls safe?”
“Yes.”
“Do they remember me?”
I laughed through tears.
“They never stopped.”
The helicopter returned us to the estate before dawn.
Daniela and Martina waited in the main hall.
When Elena entered, neither girl moved at first.
Four years can transform a mother into a memory.
Elena lowered herself to her knees.
Daniela began crying.
Martina took one step.
Then another.
She opened the music box.
“You Are My Sunshine” filled the hall.
Elena covered her mouth.
“My babies,” she whispered.
Both girls ran to her.
I turned away because the sight was too sacred to watch directly.
Rosa stood beside me.
“You found her,” she said.
“No. We found one another.”
Behind us, my mother entered the house.
Isabella had been transferred from Virginia and was recovering in the medical wing.
For the first time in decades, the surviving members of my family were beneath the same roof.
But Samuel’s final words remained with me.
Ask her who started the fire.
The first fire.
The explosion that stole Isabella.
May you like
When I looked at my mother, I saw not relief—
but fear.
