“I understand.”
“Tell me you feel the same way. Say you agree that Isabella is a danger to our daughter.”
She didn’t think he would say it at first. After all, Henry was still Isabella’sson.He had been her golden child until he grew a personality of his own and pursued love outside of their class. But Isabella had held onto hope foryearsthat Henry would lose interest in his wife and move on with someone else. Someone more hisstation.She wanted blonde-haired, blue-eyed babies from someone not named Monica.
What if Henry still wasn’t ready to banish his mother from their lives? Would they come back from that as a family?
“She absolutely is.” His voice was low.Dark.“I knew she was capable of some foul and unbelievable things, but this? Endangering her only grandchild because of some archaic vision of what families are supposed to look like.” His tone shook as if he warbled between anger and fear. A deadly combination that threatened to turn him upside down. “The things she did to Eva when we were younger have only set the stage for this. As long as Abigail obeys, my mother will dote on her. The moment our Abby steps out of line, though…”
“We have long planned for the day when we had to explain to her why Grandma is suddenly a monster. We just didn’t think it would be like this.”
“No. I daresay we didn’t. Who knew she had it in her?”
“Something’s going on with that woman. I keep thinking that this is horrendous even forher.She must know that she’s legally in big trouble. That she’ll be kept from us for the rest of her life over these actions. So… what’s happened? What’s the trigger, Henry?”
“I wish I knew. She’s been acting more erratic over the years, but she also seemed to have come around on a few things. She even spent a whole week in Malibu with Eva, Nadia, and Abby a couple of years ago…”
“Trust me, there were plenty of reports about what she said during that time.”
“But it wasn’t anything close to this.”
“No. I keep thinking that there must have been signs. There had to be a way to have prevented this before it happened.”
“You can’t think like that, Monica. Don’t beat yourself up because we trusted my mother with our daughter.”
“I can’t help it. This whole time, I was so worried about herinfluencethat I didn’t think about her potential actions. We were at the Château being absorbed in one another, and…”
“Don’t blame either of us. We had no way of knowing.”
But that wasn’t good enough for Monica, who knew she’d be suffering the repercussions of this for years. Even if Abigail was returned safe, sound, and untraumatized, Monica would stillknow.There would be a day when she would have to explain to her daughter what this had done to their family. Why she was never allowed to see Grandma again. Why a piece of her childhood that day…
Anything terrible could happen at any time. One of the hardest parts of becoming a mother was realizing that shecouldn’t protect her daughter from everything. Not even money built a barrier against nefarious actors and abusers.Sometimes, it makes it worse.Most of Monica’s nightmares about kidnappings concerned ransoms, though. Not selling her daughter to a powerful French family who were interested in her “breeding.”
The repercussions would reverberate through a dozen families for generations.
“Are you there, Monica?”
“Yes,” she softly said. “I’m sorry, Henry. A million things are racing through my mind right now. I can’t stop thinking about what this is going to do to us as a family.”
“This will do nothing,” he replied, “other than make us stronger.”
Monica didn’t know how that was possible. “I’m not feeling very strong right now.”
“You’re one of the strongest women I know. Why do you think I knew you were the perfect mother for my children? Why I admireyouso much? Monica, you have been through so much. You aregoingthrough so much still. Every time I see you tackle something everyone else would consider insurmountable, I remain amazed. And in love. Because you’re an amazing woman that makes this family stronger than ever before. I don’t know where we would be if you and I never met.”
“God, listen to you. I’m somewhere over Colorado, on my way to Thailand, and…”
“Exactly. You’re not taking this shit. You’retakingour destiny as a family into your hands. You’re doing what I physically cannot do right now. I trust no one more than you to get this done. My only regret is that I can’t be there with you to be the rock I know you need.”
“My rock, huh?”
“I know you, Princess. You fight so hard and for so long that sometimes you start to float away. If nobody catches you in time, you might end up somewhere halfway across the Atlantic.”
“Or the Pacific, in this case.”
“I’m serious. I worry about you. Tell me you’ll get some rest while you’re in the air.”
“I’m trying. I’m lying in bed right nowtryingto sleep, but every time I close my eyes I’m transported back to what Abby must be feeling right now. Oh, she must miss us terribly. It’s not like her to be away from both of us for so long, Henry. Do you think she’s okay? Do you think they’re taking care of her?”
