Chapter 222

As they dragged Kegan away, Hilliard turned back to Cailin. His eyes were blazing.

“Did you know?” he demanded. “Tell me the truth. Did you order this?”

“No!” Cailin cried, tears streaming down her face. “I didn’t know. I swear it.”

“I want to believe you,” Hilliard said, stepping closer. “But you’ve lied about everything else. The miscarriage. The disappearance. Why should I believe this isn’t your revenge?”

“Because I’m not a monster!” Cailin shouted. “Unlike you and your family!”

“Mommy?”

The small voice cut through the shouting like a blade.

Hilliard froze. Cailin stopped breathing. They both turned toward the staircase.

Elia stood on the landing, clutching a stuffed rabbit, wearing oversized pajamas with her hair tangled from sleep. She looked utterly terrified.

“Bad Man?” she whispered, staring at Hilliard.

Then a sudden movement from one of the officers startled her, and she turned and bolted back up the stairs. As she ran, the back of her loose pajama shirt lifted for just a fraction of a second.

And he saw it. The Holloway Moon.

There it was — the same mark he had glimpsed in the dim light of the boathouse when he pulled her from the water, now stark and unmistakable beneath the flashing police lights. The undeniable biological stamp that branded her as his, sending a wave of guilt and fierce, helpless possession crashing through his chest.

“Elia,” Hilliard breathed.

He took a step toward the stairs. “Elia—”

Cailin moved. Despite her injury, despite her exhaustion, she threw herself between him and the staircase.

“Don’t you dare!” she screamed, her voice raw and feral. “Don’t you look at her! She is not yours!”

“She has the mark, Cailin!” Hilliard shouted, pointing past her. “She has the Holloway Moon! Stop lying to me! She is my daughter!”

“She is Ashley’s!” Cailin cried, spreading her good arm wide to block his view. “Get out! Get out of this house!”

“It’s not your house,” Hilliard said, his voice trembling with awe and rage in equal measure. “It’s a crime scene. And that is my child.”

He looked over Cailin’s shoulder, his voice dropping to something almost gentle.

“Elia. I’m not the Bad Man. I’m your daddy.”

Elia looked at Cailin.

“No, baby,” Cailin wept. “Go upstairs. Go to Aron and Davy.”

Hilliard’s head snapped back to her.

“Aron and Davy,” he repeated.

The names from the phone call. Hearing her say them aloud — confirming everything — made the reality crash down on him all at once. They were no longer disembodied voices on an encrypted line. They were here. They were real.

Three. Not just the girl. Three.

The full, crushing weight of it landed on him. He had suspected, but the sheer scale of the secret — five years, three children, hidden in plain sight — drove the air from his lungs. He staggered back and caught himself against the doorframe.

“You hid three of them,” he whispered. “For five years.”