Chapter 3 - The Forged Horizon
The silence inside the bakery was absolute, save for the rhythmic patter of the rain against the glass window. Rosalind reached out, her fingers catching on the edge of the paper. She didn't want to touch it. She was afraid that if she did, the fragile, quiet peace she had built out of her forty years of life would dissolve into ash.
She unfolded the letter. The ink was old, a fading blue that detailed a transaction from sixteen years prior.
To Don Vittorio Belmonte, Clara’s handwriting read. The arrangements have been finalized. My sister has agreed to the terms and has accepted the sum to discontinue her communication with your son. She has left for the northern districts. You will not be troubled by the Fairchild name again.
“I never saw a single dollar,” Rosalind whispered, her voice dropping into a hollow, dead register. “I stayed right here. I stayed through the winter my father died. I stayed when the roof collapsed and the city tried to shut the ovens down. I never went north, Cassian. I was right here. Waiting for you.”
Cassian’s face transformed into something terrifying—a mask of pure, unbridled fury that explained exactly why the streets called him the scary one. The veins in his neck tightened, his scarred hands clenching into fists that looked capable of shattering the oak counter between them.
“Vittorio lied to me until his final breath,” Cassian said, his breath coming in shallow, ragged bursts. “He told me he had protected you by keeping me away. And your sister… your own blood… she sold your youth to my father so she could use the Belmonte money to buy her way into the Newport country clubs.”
He stepped closer, his chest nearly touching hers, his eyes searching her face with a frantic, desperate intensity. “Rose… the child. Poppy. The neighbors said you have a daughter. They said she has dark brown curls and green eyes. My father’s eyes.”
Rosalind felt the blood drain from her face. She stepped back, her hand instantly dropping to the drawer beneath the register where she kept the overdue notices—and the small silver locket that had been left around Poppy’s neck five years ago.
“Poppy is seven years old, Cassian,” Rosalind said, her voice turning defensive, her maternal instincts overriding the shock of the letter. “She isn't your child. I told you, she was left on my doorstep five years ago on a freezing January night. She was two years old, half-dead from pneumonia, wrapped in a blanket that belonged to an old motel in Warwick.”
Cassian’s eyes darkened, a sudden, sharp calculation replacing the fury in his features. “A motel in Warwick? The Blue Marina?”
Rosalind froze. “How did you know that?”
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“Because that’s where my younger brother, Julian, lived before he was killed in the docks five years ago,” Cassian said, his voice dropping into a whisper that made the small kitchen feel like a tomb. “Julian had a daughter, Rose. Her mother died in childbirth, and Julian was trying to smuggle the baby out of the state to keep my father from turning her into a pawn for the family alliances. The night he died, the baby vanished. We thought the rival crews had taken her. We thought she was at the bottom of the bay.”
He reached out, his scarred thumb gently brushing a stray lock of hair from Rosalind’s forehead, his touch so light it felt like a ghost’s kiss. “She wasn't at the bottom of the bay. Julian brought her to the only person in this city he knew was safe. He brought her to the woman his brother had loved more than life itself.”
