Chapter 12 - THEIR MARRIAGE WASN’T THE FIRST CONNECTION
Daniel didn't sleep that night.
Neither did Emma.
They sat beside Lila's crib while the baby breathed peacefully beneath a pale-blue blanket.
“Do you regret us?” Emma asked quietly.
Daniel looked at her.
“What?”
“If you'd known our families were connected like this.”
“No.”
“That isn't what I asked.”
Daniel thought carefully.
“I regret not having the choice to understand it.”
Emma nodded.
“So do I.”
They held hands.
Downstairs, Margaret and Evelyn went through Thomas's journals.
The records revealed more than either expected.
The Holloways had spent decades quietly providing money, property, and documents to people from Evelyn's bloodline.
Thomas purchased homes under shell companies.
Paid hospital bills.
Created identities.
He hadn't been exploiting them.
He had been protecting them.
“He kept the promise,” Margaret said.
Evelyn nodded.
“His father made it to Clara.”
Margaret looked at her.
“Did my husband know?”
“No.”
“Daniel's father?”
“No.”
“Why me?”
“Thomas trusted you.”
Margaret almost laughed.
“He barely spoke to me.”
“He watched people more carefully than he spoke to them.”
Evelyn opened another ledger.
Inside was a photograph of Margaret as a young woman.
A note beneath it:
She will protect family even when afraid.
Margaret stared.
“That manipulative old man.”
Evelyn smiled faintly.
“He liked you.”
“Apparently enough to leave me a supernatural inheritance without instructions.”
They kept reading.
Thomas had communicated with Mara for decades.
Mara was Evelyn's mother.
Unlike Evelyn, she believed the two bloodlines should eventually reunite.
“Why?” Margaret asked.
Evelyn's expression darkened.
“My mother believed our people were becoming weaker.”
“Weaker?”
“Fewer transformations. Shorter adaptation periods. Higher infant mortality among children born entirely within isolated communities.”
Margaret understood.
“She wanted genetic diversity.”
“Yes.”
“And Holloway blood carried an old branch.”
“Yes.”
Margaret's eyes narrowed.
“So she wanted Emma and Daniel together.”
Evelyn did not answer.
“That family tree wasn't prediction.”
Silence.
“It was planning.”
Evelyn finally said, “My mother noticed Daniel when he was born.”
Margaret stood.
“You're telling me somebody selected my son as a future husband for a girl who hadn't even been born?”
“No one forced anything.”
“But they watched them.”
“Yes.”
Margaret became furious.
“Did you arrange their meeting?”
“No.”
“Did Mara?”
“She died before they met.”
“When?”
“2008.”
Daniel and Emma met in 2017.
Margaret calmed slightly.
“But someone kept the ledger afterward.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
Margaret didn't believe her.
Upstairs, Daniel searched old emails from the year he met Emma.
Their first meeting had seemed random.
A charity auction in Boston.
Daniel attended because a colleague canceled.
Emma attended because a friend had invited her.
He found the invitation.
Then something strange.
His colleague's cancellation email had been sent only four hours before the event.
The colleague, Peter Lang, wrote that a family emergency had arisen.
Daniel texted him.
Do you remember why you canceled that charity event in Boston in 2017?
Peter replied fifteen minutes later.
I didn't. You took my ticket because somebody from the foundation called and said they had an extra seat.
Daniel stared.
His memory said otherwise.
He searched more.
The foundation no longer existed.
Its registration had been dissolved three months after the auction.
Emma woke beside him.
“What?”
He showed her.
“That event…”
“Yes.”
“It may have been arranged.”
Emma sat up.
“But we chose each other.”
“I know.”
“Daniel.”
He looked at her.
“Whatever someone hoped would happen, they didn't make me fall in love with you.”
“I know.”
She touched his face.
“They didn't make Lila either.”
He kissed her forehead.
Downstairs, Margaret discovered a document hidden inside the back cover of Thomas's journal.
It wasn't written by Thomas.
The handwriting matched the entries in Evelyn's ledger.
The unknown person who had added Daniel and Emma's names.
At the bottom was a modern date.
2017.
Margaret called Evelyn over.
“You said you didn't know who continued this.”
Evelyn looked at the handwriting.
Her face changed.
Margaret noticed immediately.
“You recognize it.”
“No.”
“Don't.”
Evelyn sat down.
Margaret slammed her palm onto the table.
“Whose handwriting is it?”
Evelyn whispered one name.
“Martin.”
Emma's father.
Margaret stared.
“Martin arranged their meeting?”
“I think so.”
At that exact moment, Daniel and Emma came downstairs.
Daniel held the old charity invitation.
“We have a problem.”
Margaret looked at Emma.
“Yes.”
She pushed the document toward her.
May you like
“I think your father made sure you met Daniel.”
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