“What are we going to do, Grandma?”
I looked into his eyes—those eyes that so resembled his mother’s. Good. Noble. Incapable of lying.
“We are going to prove the truth, my boy. And we are going to make her pay for every tear she made you shed. Because Chelsea made a mistake tonight—a mistake that will cost her everything. She messed with my grandson. And no one—absolutely no one—hurts my family without me doing something about it.”
Commander Elellanena Stone was back, and this time there was no retirement that could stop me.
What secret was Chelsea hiding? Why so much hatred toward an innocent boy? The truth was darker than I imagined.
We arrived at my house when the sun was barely beginning to peek out between the buildings. Ethan walked silently beside me, dragging his feet from fatigue and pain. I lived in a modest apartment in Greenwich Village, a third floor without an elevator that I had bought with my life savings. It wasn’t luxurious, but it was mine. Every piece of furniture, every dish, every memory on those walls belonged to me.
I opened the door and turned on the lights. The familiar smell of coffee and cinnamon greeted me. I always left a stick of cinnamon on the stove so the house would smell like home.
“Come sit on the couch,” I said to Ethan. “I’m going to make you something to eat.”
“I’m not hungry, Grandma.”
“I didn’t ask if you were hungry. I said I’m going to make you something.”
He managed a weak smile and collapsed onto the brown fabric sofa. It was old, but comfortable. I had bought it at a secondhand market fifteen years ago, and it still held up.
I went to the kitchen and heated milk. I prepared two cups of hot chocolate, the way my mother taught me when I was a girl. I cut a piece of the chocolate chip cake I had bought the day before at the local bakery two blocks away.
I returned to the living room with everything on a tray. Ethan took the cup in his hands and sipped. He closed his eyes, savoring it. For a moment, he seemed to forget everything that had happened.
“Thank you, Grandma.”
“Eat slowly. Then I’ll give you something for the pain in your eyebrow.”
