Chapter 4: What Her Father Never Said
Hannah did not sleep that night.
They gave her a room on the second floor.
Clean.
Quiet.
A window that looked out over the wet street below.
Someone had left a glass of water and a folded blanket on the chair by the door, and she didn't know whether to find that comforting or more unsettling than everything else.
She sat on the edge of the bed and called her mother.
Three rings.
Four.
"Hannah?
It's almost midnight."
"Mom." She kept her voice steady.
"Did Dad ever mention a name?
Caroline?
Or a daughter — before me?"
Silence.
Not the silence of someone thinking.
The silence of someone who had been waiting.
"Mom."
"Where are you?"
"Answer the question."
Another pause.
Then her mother said, very quietly, "Come home first."
"I can't come home right now.
Tell me."
"Hannah—"
"Was there another daughter?"
The silence stretched long enough that Hannah knew the answer before her mother spoke.
"Your father had a child before we met.
A girl.
She was very young when she was taken — that's the word he used, taken — and he never found her.
He looked for years.
He stopped talking about it before you were born because it was destroying him." Her mother's voice was thin.
"He made me promise not to tell you.
He said it wasn't your weight to carry."
Hannah pressed her hand over her eyes.
"Why didn't he tell me himself?
Before he d*ed?"
"He tried.
The last week, he tried.
But he couldn't get the words out and then—" Her mother stopped.
"He ran out of time."
Hannah sat with that for a moment.
"What was her name?"
"Caroline.
He called her Cara."
The room tilted slightly.
"Mom, I need you to listen to me.
I'm safe.
I'm going to explain everything, but not tonight.
Don't tell anyone I called.
Don't open the door for anyone you don't know."
"Hannah, you're frightening me."
"Good.
Stay frightened until I call you again."
She ended the call and sat in the dark for a long time.
In the morning, she found Dominic in the kitchen.
He was standing at the counter with a coffee cup, still dressed, which told her he hadn't slept either.
One of the nannies was upstairs.
She could hear small feet moving across the ceiling.
"Cara was my sister," Hannah said from the doorway.
Dominic set the cup down.
"I know."
"You knew before last night."
"I suspected.
The documents confirmed it."
"When did you suspect?"
He looked at her directly.
"The moment the girls called you Mama.
Cara used to say — when she was still well enough to say much — that if anything happened to her, the girls would find their way.
I thought it was something people say.
Something you tell yourself." He paused.
"I don't think that anymore."
Hannah crossed the kitchen and sat down at the table.
"Who took her?
When she was young.
Who took her from my father?"
Dominic pulled out the chair across from her and sat.
"A man named Victor Renn.
He was a business associate of Cara's biological grandfather — her mother's side.
When Cara's mother d*ed, Renn moved in quickly.
He took custody through a lawyer your father couldn't afford to fight.
Changed her name.
Relocated her." His jaw tightened.
"He raised her as a financial asset.
Introduced her to me deliberately."
"Why?"
"Because I was twenty-eight and building something significant and he wanted access to it.
Cara was his introduction." Something moved behind Dominic's eyes.
"She didn't know that for a long time.
When she found out, it broke something in her."
"Did it have anything to do with how she d*ed?"
The question landed hard.
Dominic's hand on the table went still.
"The official cause was a cardiac event.
She was twenty-four.
No prior history." He looked at the table.
"I have never been satisfied with that answer."
Hannah's chest tightened.
"And the man who called you yesterday—"
"Victor Renn."
She absorbed that.
"He's been looking for me."
"For two years.
Since Cara d*ed." Dominic looked up.
"I think he's known about you longer than that.
I think he knew your father had another daughter.
And I think he's been waiting to see if you would surface."
"Why would he care about me?"
Dominic was quiet for a moment.
"Because Cara left something behind.
Something Renn wants.
And I believe she left it with the only person she trusted enough — the sister she never met — without ever telling you she did it."
Hannah stared at him.
"I don't have anything."
"You might not know you have it."
Upstairs, one of the girls laughed.
A bright, sudden sound that cut through everything.
Hannah looked at the ceiling.
May you like
Then she looked back at Dominic.
"Tell me everything you know about Victor Renn."
