Chapter 4 - THE DEAD MAN WHO VISITED OUR APARTMENT
My mother had kept a secret for six years.
And it began with a man who had supposedly been dead for eighteen.
"Anthony Ashford came to our apartment?" Alexander asked.
Mom nodded.
"He wore a dark coat and carried a cane. Miguel recognized him immediately."
Charles Whitcomb had followed us to Queens.
When Mom described the visitor, his face drained of color.
"Anthony injured his right leg during military service," Charles said quietly. "He used a cane whenever the pain returned."
Alexander looked between them.
"My father's body was identified after the warehouse fire."
"By whom?" Charles asked.
Alexander didn't answer.
I suddenly realized how little any of us knew.
Mom sat at the kitchen table.
"Your father sent me and the children into the bedroom that night," she told Alexander. "I heard them arguing."
"About what?" I asked.
"A ledger."
My heart tightened.
"What ledger?"
"Something Anthony had hidden. Miguel said the wrong people would kill to find it."
Alexander slowly pulled out a chair.
"Did my father say why he'd disappeared?"
Mom nodded.
"He said someone inside the Ashford organization had betrayed him."
Charles lowered his head.
Alexander stared at him.
"You knew?"
"I suspected," Charles whispered. "But Anthony warned me that revealing his survival would put his sons in danger."
"Daniel and me?"
Charles nodded.
For several seconds, Alexander said nothing.
Then he turned away, pressing his hand against the kitchen counter.
I had never seen a powerful man look so completely lost.
Finally, he asked, "What happened after my father left?"
Mom wiped her eyes.
"Miguel started sleeping near the front door. He stopped letting the children walk to school alone."
I remembered those weeks.
Dad had seemed distracted.
He checked the windows twice every night.
He insisted I practice the Quiet Current even when I complained.
Then came the night at the subway station.
Mom looked at me.
"Sophia, your father wasn't passing through Astoria by accident."
"What?"
"He went there to meet Anthony."
Alexander turned.
"Then why was Daniel there?"
Charles suddenly reached for his phone.
"Because Daniel received an anonymous message that night."
Alexander frowned.
"What message?"
Charles opened an old case file.
"Daniel was told to come alone if he wanted to know what happened to his father."
Silence filled the kitchen.
My father had gone to meet Anthony.
Daniel had been lured to the same station.
And Victor Kane had arrived carrying a knife.
It was never a random attack.
Someone had arranged all three men's presence.
Then Mom whispered something that made Alexander go perfectly still.
"Miguel told me Anthony wasn't hiding from his enemies anymore."
"What was he doing?" Alexander asked.
May you like
Mom looked directly at him.
"He was hiding from his own son."
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