Page 20 of The Rook’s Obsession

She blinks. Surprised, maybe, that I didn’t deny it.

“I’m watching for something to land,” I continue. “Because I believe your memory is still in there, somewhere. Buried, not erased. And I think the right trigger could bring it back.”

“And if it doesn’t?” She sets the wine down and looks at me directly. The fear of flying is still there, underneath, but she’s pushed it aside in favor of something harder. “If nothing comes back? If I never remember any of it? What then? You drag me to the States, you put me in front of a brother I don’t recognize, and I’m supposed to… what? Play along? Pretend to be someone I’m not?”

“You wouldn’t be pretending.”

“I would.” The wine loosened her fear and her control, from the looks of it. She’s not half as guarded now. She doesn’t bother hiding her anger or contempt as she lashes out. “Because Laura Knight doesn’t exist anymore. I’m not her. I haven’t been her in twelve years. Whatever girl you fell in love with, whatever sister Liam lost? She’s gone. Twelve years of a completely different life happened to this body, and none of it included any of you.”

The words hit like shrapnel, and she knows it. I can see her watching me for the impact, the way she’d watch a target through a scope. Measuring the damage.

I take a breath and let it out. “Maybe you’re right.”

That surprises her. Her mouth snaps shut, and her eyebrows lift a little.

“Maybe Laura is gone,” I muse, even though the words stick in my throat. “Maybe she’s never coming back, and you’ll always be Ivy. I don’t know. Neither do you. But I made a promise, and the first part of that promise was finding you. The second part is bringing you home. What happens after that, who you decide to be, that’s up to you. Not me. Not Liam. You.”

At first, she looks confused. Searching my face like she’s looking for the truth under my words. There is no hidden truth. I wonder if Vincenzo ever allowed her to think for herself.

No, I don’t have to wonder. Not really. I know the answer.

She’s quiet for a long time after that. The cabin lights are low, casting everything in a warm amber that makes her look softer than she’d ever allow herself to be in full daylight. She finishes her wine in small sips, staring at nothing, and I leave her alone with her thoughts.

After a while, her eyelids start to droop. The wine, the altitude, the exhaustion of fighting and being fought—it’s all catching up. Her head tilts toward the window, then rights itself. Tilts again. She’s losing the battle against sleep.

Within ten minutes, she’s out. Really out, not the shallow, twitchy sleep from last night. Her face goes slack, her lips part slightly, and one hand falls from the armrest to her lap. She looks like a kid. Or like someone who has been carrying something impossibly heavy for a very long time and has finally set it down, if only for now.

I watch her sleep and think about what she said.

She’s gone. Twelve years of a completely different life happened to this body.

What if she’s right? The thought has been lurking at the back of my mind since the moment she looked at me with zero recognition and told me her name was Ivy. I’ve been running on faith and stubbornness and the conviction that Laura is still in there, trapped behind walls someone else built. But what if she isn’t? What if the explosion and the amnesia and twelve years of being remade by the Russos didn’t just bury Laura Knight?

What if they erased her?

What if I bring home a stranger?

I pick up my phone and open the thread with Liam.

She doesn’t remember anything. Not me, not you, not any of it. She’s convinced Laura is gone. I’m starting to wonder if she might be right.

His response takes longer this time. A full minute, which for Liam is an eternity.

What did Dr. Feld say?

I know what he said. Liam and I sat in that office together after Gabriel’s revelation, after we’d both stopped reeling long enough to think clearly. Dr. Feld specializes in traumatic amnesia, and he was blunt about the prognosis. Memory loss from trauma isn’t always permanent. The memories aren’t necessarily destroyed. They’re dissociated, locked away by the brain’s own defense mechanisms. The right stimuli or environment, or emotional triggers, can bring them back. Not all at once, not overnight, but in fragments. Flashes. Familiar tastes, smells, sounds, faces. The brain recognizes what the conscious mind can’t access, and sometimes, with enough exposure, the door opens.

Sometimes it doesn’t. He was honest about that, too.

He said familiar things could trigger recall, I type. That we have to surround her with her old life. People she knew. Places she’s been. Things that mattered to her.

Then that’s what we do, he responds.

And if it doesn’t work?

Another pause. Then: It has to work. Bring her home, Nick. We’ll figure out the rest.

I set the phone down and lean back in my seat. Across the cabin, she sleeps on, her chest rising and falling in a slow, even rhythm. The floral blouse looks strange on her. It’s too soft, too normal for a woman who handles a gun the way she does.