Chapter 13 - The Puzzle in the WaterThe lake slapped softly against the dock.
Behind Derek, the boat engine growled low and steady. Vivian sat rigid in the back seat, one hand pressed to her throat. She looked less like a villain now and more like a woman who had built her life on a monster and only just noticed the teeth.
Derek held the brass puzzle over the water.
Rowan stood ten feet away, frozen.
His breathing changed at once. Too shallow. Too fast. His hands lifted, then dropped, then lifted again.
I stepped beside him.
Not in front.
Beside.
“Rowan,” I said softly.
His eyes did not move from the puzzle.
Derek laughed. “There she is. Your little translator.”
I ignored him.
“One. Two. Three.”
Nothing.
The boat rocked.
“One. Two. Three.”
Rowan’s fingers curled inward.
Derek tilted the puzzle lower.
“You know what’s funny?” he said. “Everyone thinks I hated you because you were different. That’s not it.”
His smile vanished.
“I hated you because even silent, you were better than me.”
Vivian whispered, “Derek, stop.”
But he was past stopping.
“Do you know what it was like?” he shouted. “Being the one who showed up? The one who shook hands? The one who sat beside your father at dinners while you hid in back halls counting doors? And still, everything real went to you.”
Rowan flinched.
Derek’s face twisted.
“The company. The foundation. His guilt. His money. His legacy. You didn’t even want the throne, and he saved it for you anyway.”
Elliott’s voice came from the top of the path.
“No, Derek.”
He walked down slowly, Mercer and two guards behind him.
Derek turned the puzzle again over the lake.
“One more step.”
Everyone stopped.
Elliott’s face was savage with restraint.
“I didn’t save him a throne,” he said. “I denied him a life because I thought protecting him meant hiding him. That was my failure. Not his inheritance.”
Derek’s jaw worked.
“You always choose him.”
“I chose myself for years,” Elliott said. “Tonight I am choosing my son.”
For one second, Derek looked like a child.
Then the child vanished.
He dropped the puzzle.
Rowan made a sound I will never forget.
Not a scream.
Not exactly.
It was grief stripped of language.
The brass object hit the lake and disappeared.
I moved before anyone else.
I kicked off my shoes and jumped.
The water was so cold it stole every thought from my body.
Lake Michigan in October does not receive you gently. It takes your breath, your muscles, your arrogance. My coat dragged at me instantly. I fought toward the sinking gleam below the surface, one arm cutting through black water, fingers numb.
Above me, voices shouted.
Below, the puzzle turned once in the dark.
I dove.
My hand closed around metal.
For a second, I did not know which way was up.
Then another hand grabbed my wrist.
Rowan.
He had come in after me.
His face was pale beneath the water, eyes open, focused with terrifying calm.
Together, we kicked upward.
Mercer and Elliott dragged us onto the dock.
I coughed lake water onto expensive wood and shook so hard my teeth hurt.
Rowan lay beside me, soaked, clutching the brass puzzle to his chest.
Derek stared at us.
Something in him broke then.
Not with guilt.
With defeat.
Mercer seized him before he could move.
Vivian covered her face.
Elliott knelt beside Rowan and me, his hands hovering like he did not know where he was allowed to touch.
Rowan looked at his father.
Then, slowly, he held out the puzzle.
Elliott took it with both hands.
Like a sacred thing.
May you like
Like a trust.
Like a son’s heart, returned from dark water.
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