Katrina

Chapter Six

Story A — The Present

THE FIRST QUESTIONS

By midmorning, Jason's house was no longer quiet.

Gabriel arrived first, his expression tense, followed by the family members he had managed to gather on short notice. Questions filled the living room before anyone had even settled.

“Where is she?” Gabriel demanded.

Jason stood near the window, his arms folded tightly across his chest.

“I told you, I don't know.”

“You saw my sister alive, and now she's disappeared again?”

“She left before I woke up.”

Gabriel stared at him, struggling to contain his anger.

“And you let her walk out of here without getting answers?”

“I didn't know she was going to leave!”

The sharpness in Jason's voice silenced the room.

He drew a slow breath.

“She came here frightened, Gabriel. She told me someone might be after her and that our families could be in danger. I tried to get her to explain, but she wouldn't tell me everything.”

“And you're sure it's her?”

Jason met his eyes.

“I saw her. I spoke to her. Unless I've suddenly started imagining things, Katherine is alive.”

A heavy silence followed.

One of the women seated on the sofa covered her mouth. Someone else whispered Katherine's name as though saying it aloud might make the impossible truth easier to accept.

Gabriel rubbed a hand over his face.

“Three years,” he murmured. “Three years of believing she was gone.”

Jason looked down.

He understood the disbelief. He had spent the entire morning trying to convince himself that the woman who had stood in his hallway was truly his Katherine.

“And the child?” Gabriel asked suddenly. “The little girl she brought with her. Who is she?”

Jason's jaw tightened.

“Katherine's daughter.”

“That's all you know?”

“That's all she told me.”

Gabriel studied him, searching his face for something he wasn't saying.

“Does Katherine have a number we can use? An address? Anyone she might contact?”

“No.” Jason's answer came quietly. “I didn't even think to ask for her number. I believed she was dead, Gabriel. I never imagined I'd need to call her again.”

For the first time, Gabriel's anger faltered.

Jason looked toward the stairs.

“Avery saw her last night. She thought Katherine was Camila.”

The words hurt more than he expected.

“She was standing right in front of her own daughter, and Avery didn't know who she was.”

Nobody answered.

Jason swallowed.

“I wanted to explain everything this morning. But when I went to the guest room, she was gone.”

Gabriel turned toward the others.

“We need to find her.”

“And if she doesn't want to be found?” someone asked.

Jason looked up.

“Then we need to understand why she came back in the first place.”

He remembered Katherine's frightened eyes, the way she had held her daughter close, and the urgency beneath her anger.

“She didn't come here for nothing. Whatever happened to her, whatever she's afraid of, it brought her back to us.”

He paused.

“And until we know what that is, none of us should assume we're safe.”

For the first time that morning, nobody argued.

They had spent three years grieving a woman they believed was dead.

Now they had to face a different possibility.

Katherine was alive.

She had returned.

---

By noon, Jason's house had become a place of restless waiting.

Nobody had managed to settle properly. Conversations started and died, interrupted by the same unanswered questions.

Was Katherine really alive?

Where had she gone?

And why had she disappeared again?

Jason stood near the living-room window, watching the driveway for what felt like the hundredth time. He had spent the morning replaying the previous night, wishing he had asked more questions, wishing he had insisted she stay long enough to explain herself.

He knew she had left deliberately. The empty guest room and the neatly covered breakfast had made that clear.

Still, he couldn't stop worrying about her.

Then the front door opened.

The conversation in the living room faltered.

Jason turned first, expecting perhaps another family member who had finally arrived. Instead, he saw Katherine stepping inside, one hand holding the door while the other supported the little girl resting against her.

For a heartbeat, nobody spoke.

Every eye in the room settled on her.

Katherine stood just inside the entrance, her gaze moving from one familiar face to another. She looked tired, guarded, and uncertain of what kind of welcome awaited her. The little girl in her arms lifted her head, revealing a pair of striking green eyes that surveyed the room with quiet curiosity.

Jason's breath left him in a rush.

Relief came first—so sudden and powerful that he had to fight the urge to cross the room and pull Katherine into his arms. She was here. She was standing in front of him, alive and apparently unharmed.

But the relief didn't erase the questions.

It only made him realise how frightened he had been that something might have happened to her.

“Katherine,” he said.

She looked at him.

Gabriel was already on his feet.

For a moment, he seemed unable to move beyond the sight of his sister. Then he took a hesitant step forward, his expression caught between disbelief and the desperate hope he had tried to suppress all morning.

“Katrina?”

Katherine's face softened at the sound of her name.

“Hola, Gabriel.”

He stopped in front of her, staring as though he needed to make certain she was real. His eyes shone, but he didn't reach for her immediately. There were three years of grief between them, and neither seemed to know how to cross them in a single moment.

“You're alive,” he whispered.

Katherine swallowed.

“Yes.”

Gabriel let out a shaky breath. His gaze moved over her face, searching for signs of injury, answers, anything that might explain where she had been.

Then he looked at the little girl.

The child's green eyes met his.

“Who's this?” he asked softly.

Katherine instinctively drew her daughter closer.

“This is mi hija.”

[This is my daughter]

No one missed the way she held her—not merely protectively, but as though the child were the one thing in the world she could not afford to lose.

Jason watched them, his relief slowly giving way to concern.

Katherine had returned.

“Come inside,” he said quietly, stepping aside even though she was already standing in the room. “Please.”

Katherine glanced at him, then at the family watching her.

For a brief moment, she looked as though she might turn around and leave again.

Instead, she stepped farther into the house.

And as the front door closed behind her, every unanswered question waiting in that living room seemed to rise between them.

______________________________________________

CHAPTER SIX

WHAT TRUST CONCEALS

Story B — The Past

Anna waited until the house had settled before opening the locked drawer.

The folder lay exactly where she had left it. She removed it, checked the signatures one last time, and placed the documents inside a larger envelope.

Edward had already forgotten about them.

He had spent the afternoon discussing hotel renovations and laughing with the children. When Anna joined him for dinner, he asked whether the paperwork had been sent for processing.

“Not yet,” she replied. “I'll take care of it tomorrow.”

“Good. Let me know if anything else needs my attention.”

Anna held his gaze.

“I will.”

He reached across the table and squeezed her hand before returning to his meal.

The gesture left her strangely unsettled.

He trusted her completely.

She smiled at him, then lowered her eyes to her plate.

Later that evening, Anna left the house under the pretext of handling a few personal errands. She carried the envelope with her, tucked securely inside her bag.

The meeting place was quiet when she arrived.

He was already waiting.

Anna sat opposite him and placed the envelope on the table.

“Everything is signed.”

He opened it and examined the pages carefully. She watched his expression, searching for any sign that something had gone wrong.

After several minutes, he closed the folder.

“The signatures appear to be in order. The documents will still need to go through the necessary formalities before the arrangements can be treated as complete.”

“How long?”

“That depends on the processing and any requirements that remain.”

Anna's fingers tightened around her handbag.

“I don't want delays.”

“Then make certain there are no loose ends.”

His answer was calm, almost indifferent.

Anna disliked being reminded that she wasn't entirely in control. Yet she had known from the beginning that this arrangement required patience as well as calculation.

“And if Edward asks questions?”

“Has he?”

“No.”

“Then don't give him a reason to start.”

She held his gaze, but he offered nothing more.

There was no reassurance, no promise that everything would unfold exactly as she wanted. Only the quiet certainty that the next stage had begun.

Anna collected her bag and rose.

For the first time in weeks, she felt that the future she had imagined was within reach.

She had secured Edward's signatures. The arrangements were moving forward. And her husband remained blissfully unaware that the papers he had signed might change the balance of power within his own family.

When Anna returned home, Edward was waiting in their bedroom, reading.

“You're late,” he remarked without looking up.

“I had a few things to take care of.”

He set the book aside and smiled.

“Everything all right?”

Anna crossed the room and kissed his cheek.

“Everything is fine, Eduardo.”

He accepted the answer without question and drew her close.

Anna rested against him, listening to the steady rhythm of his breathing.

She had wanted freedom, influence, and a future that belonged to her.

Now she had taken the first decisive step toward securing them.

Yet as Edward held her, she understood something she had refused to consider before.

The hardest part would not be deceiving him into signing the papers.

It would be continuing to look into his trusting eyes while she prepared for everything that came next.