The Mother Between Them
Chapter 13 - The Mother Between Them
Isabella’s recovery was uneven.
Some mornings she remembered details from the nursery with painful clarity. Other days, twenty-seven years of medication and isolation blurred time. She occasionally called Clara Rosa and mistook Vivienne for Celeste.
The sisters reacted differently.
Clara became patient and practical, helping with meals and medical appointments. Vivienne withdrew whenever Isabella confused her with the woman who stole her.
One afternoon, Isabella found Vivienne crying in the east nursery.
“I loved Celeste,” Vivienne said. “She lied to me, but she sang when I was sick. She taught me to ride. Am I betraying you by missing her?”
Isabella sat beside her.
“No child betrays one mother by loving another.”
Clara listened from the hallway, unable to enter. Rosa had been her real mother in every daily sense. Learning her bloodline did not reduce the woman who packed lunches, worked double shifts, and sat beside hospital beds.
That evening, Clara placed Rosa’s photograph on Isabella’s table.
“She saved me,” Clara said.
Isabella touched the frame. “She saved all of us.”
Together they established the Rosa Reyes Fund for foster youth and domestic workers, using recovered money from the hidden account rather than company assets.
Eleanor objected only to the modest amount.
“Add another zero,” she said.
For the first time, laughter filled the east wing.
The peace ended when Marcus received Conrad’s location. He had boarded a Vale Crown medical jet using false clearance and was heading toward a country without an extradition treaty.
The aircraft was already over the Atlantic.
Vivienne knew the jet’s emergency satellite system. As a teenager, she had learned it during flight training. The system required a family voiceprint to authorize destination changes.
Conrad had disabled Eleanor’s code.
He had not disabled Vivienne’s.
She contacted the cockpit and issued an emergency return based on stolen aircraft status. Conrad attempted to override her. The pilot, informed of the federal warrant, locked the cabin and diverted to Maine.
Conrad was arrested on landing.
Cameras captured him stepping onto the tarmac in handcuffs, still wearing the dark suit from the gala.
He looked directly at Vivienne, who stood behind federal agents.
“You were supposed to be my legacy,” he said.
May you like
She answered quietly.
“I was never your property.”
