Chapter 8: What Lily Left Behind
Hannah was awake when the call came.
It was just past nine in the morning.
Lily was at the kitchen table at the Castellan property, eating toast and explaining to a patient older woman named Rosa — who managed the house and had apparently decided that Lily was the most interesting person she had met in years — exactly why Chester the rabbit preferred to face left when he slept.
Hannah stepped into the hallway to take the call.
"Mr.
Moretti."
"How is she?"
"She's fine.
She's been fine since we arrived.
She likes Rosa."
"Good." A brief pause.
"I need to speak with you.
I can come there, or I can send a car.
Whichever you prefer."
Hannah looked through the doorway at Lily, who was now demonstrating Chester's preferred sleeping position to Rosa with great seriousness.
"I'll come to you," she said.
Rosa stayed with Lily.
Hannah took the car.
She arrived at the main house at ten-thirty.
Gabriel met her at the door and led her to the study, where Adrian was standing at the window with a cup of coffee — real coffee, she noticed, not tea — and the particular stillness of a man who had spent the night making decisions.
"Sit down, Hannah."
She sat.
He turned from the window.
"I want to tell you what we found," he said.
"All of it.
You have the right to know."
He told her.
He told her about the compounds, the three years, the cognitive deterioration that had been six months from permanent.
He told her about Dr.
Voss and the forged consent documentation.
He told her about the stuffed bear, what had been on it, what Dominic had intended.
Hannah sat very still through all of it.
When he finished, the room was quiet for a moment.
"She knew," Hannah said.
"Lily?"
"She knew something was wrong.
She couldn't name it.
But she knew." Hannah's voice was steady, but her hands in her lap were not.
"She's been carrying Chester everywhere since the bear arrived.
She wouldn't let it near her room.
I thought she was just being particular."
"She was protecting herself."
"She's three."
"Yes."
Hannah looked at the floor.
Then back up.
"What happens now?
To Dominic?"
"He's been removed from all operational roles as of yesterday.
The legal process will take time, but the outcome is not in question.
He won't be returning to this organization."
"And to us?
To me and Lily?"
Adrian set his coffee down.
"That's what I wanted to talk to you about."
He sat down across from her — not behind the desk, but in the chair beside it, which she noticed.
"You've worked in this house for three years," he said.
"During that time, my brother was using your daughter as a potential point of leverage against you.
You didn't know that, but it happened under my roof.
That is my responsibility."
"Mr.
Moretti—"
"Let me finish."
She waited.
"I'm not asking you to stay because I feel guilty.
I'm asking you to stay because you and Lily are — " He paused, and something in the pause felt like a man choosing a word carefully for the first time in a long time.
"— not people I want to lose from this house."
Hannah looked at him.
"That's a very careful way of saying something," she said.
The corner of his mouth moved.
"I'm out of practice."
"I noticed."
A beat of quiet that was different from the quiet that had filled the house for the past two days.
"Lily asked about you this morning," Hannah said.
"She wanted to know if the annoying man was still there."
"Gabriel."
"She meant you."
Adrian looked at her.
"She said you needed someone to check on you," Hannah continued.
"She said the lion can't watch the cave alone forever."
He was quiet for a moment.
"She's three," he said.
"She's very three," Hannah agreed.
Outside the window, the morning was clear and ordinary.
A gardener was moving along the far hedge.
A delivery van was turning at the gate.
"Stay," Adrian said.
"Both of you.
Different terms than before — better ones.
And Lily gets a room that locks from the inside and a door that she can open herself."
Hannah looked at him for a long moment.
"She'll still wander," she said.
"I know."
"She'll end up in your bedroom again."
"Probably."
"And you won't mind."
It wasn't quite a question.
Adrian picked up his coffee.
"I slept seven hours," he said.
"For the first time in three years."
Hannah stood up.
"I'll go get her," she said.
She was at the door when he spoke again.
"Hannah."
She turned.
"Thank you.
For raising someone who notices things."
Hannah looked at him for a moment — this man who ran a city from a house where no one had slept peacefully in three years, who had just said thank you like it was a word he was still learning the weight of.
"She gets that from her father," Hannah said quietly.
May you like
"He noticed everything too."
She left before he could ask.
