Chapter 48 - The Unbroken Line
I didn't move forward to embrace her. The twelve years of silence, the empty grave, the agonizing isolation of holding Chloe’s urn alone in Chicago—those scars were too deep to be erased by a single night of victory.
"You let me believe I was alone," I said, the words heavy and honest.
"I know," Helena replied softly. "Every day I lived in the dark was an agony worse than death. But had I reached out, Fairchild’s watchers would have found the pipeline. They would have eliminated you to cut off my leverage. I had to become the monster they feared so you could survive to become the woman who destroyed them."
Julian stepped to my side, his hand warm against the small of my back. "Helena’s intervention saved Thorne’s crew when the vessel was jammed. She diverted their strike team to London so we could clear the mint safely."
I looked at Helena—the sharp cut of her jaw, the silver in her hair, the indomitable fire in her eyes that was the exact blueprint of my own spirit.
"Maya is waiting in the Cotswolds," I said simply. "She has your eyes, Mother. But she has Chloe’s laugh."
Helena’s breath hitched, a single tear cutting through the dust and fatigue on her pale cheek. She bowed her head, accepting the boundary, accepting the gift. "I would like to meet her, Clara. If you will allow me."
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"We go together," Genevieve said, linking her arm through Helena’s and reaching out her other hand to me. "No more running. No more ghosts."
I took Genevieve’s hand, and for the first time in over a decade, the three Sterling women stood connected beneath the same roof, unbroken by the storms of men who thought the world could be bought and sold.
