Rowan hadn't spoken to his father in two years.
Captain Elias West had become a legend in Evermare for all the wrong reasons: a brilliant lighthouse keeper turned bitter drunk after losing both his wife and oldest son to the sea.
Rowan had inherited the silence.
But now, that silence had teeth.
---
He found Elias in the boat shed near the harbor—half-asleep in a chair, bottle resting on his chest, old sea charts curled around his boots like forgotten maps.
"Dad," Rowan said.
The man stirred, bleary-eyed. "Storm coming?"
"No. I need to ask you about Matthew. And the Hartleys."
Elias blinked once. Then slowly sat up, rubbing a hand over his weathered face. "Should've known it'd come back one day."
"So it's true."
Elias looked him dead in the eyes. "Your brother loved that woman. Didn't care who knew. Said she was his light."
"Did she love him back?"
The captain gave a dry, bitter laugh. "Too much. Enough to destroy both of them."
Rowan's voice hardened. "They had a child. You knew, didn't you?"
"I did."
"Why didn't you ever tell me?"
Elias slammed the bottle down. "Because it wasn't your burden to carry! I already buried one son. You think I wanted to bury his story too?"
"You buried me with it," Rowan snapped.
Silence stretched between them like the tide going out.
Then Elias said something Rowan never expected to hear.
"She tried to run away with him. The night of the storm. But someone followed them to the dock."
Rowan's stomach turned. "Who?"
"I don't know. But Matthew wasn't supposed to die. He was pushed, Rowan. He didn't drown by accident."
---
At that moment, something cold and final settled in Rowan's bones.
This wasn't just about grief.
This was about truth—and how someone had tried to bury it beneath waves and whispers.
---
Meanwhile, back at the cottage, Elena sat in the attic surrounded by her grandmother's old journals, trying to piece together a life that had been deliberately erased.
She read through dozens of pages until she found a line that made her blood run cold:
> "They told me I had to choose: Matthew or my name. So I chose silence. But the sea never forgets."
The entry was dated two days before Matthew died.
Elena closed the journal slowly.
Someone in the town had known.
Someone still alive.
And someone had kept Luca hidden all these years.
She looked out the window, rain streaking down the glass.
This ends now.
---
The storm hit just as Rowan returned to her door.
Their eyes met—haunted, urgent, alive.
"I know the truth," he said. "And someone needs to pay for it."
"And I know where to start," she said. "With Luca."
"Do you think he knows?"
She shook her head. "But we owe it to him to find out."
Rowan reached for her hand. This time, there was no hesitation.
No space between their palms.
Only warmth.
Only resolve.
---
Outside, thunder cracked like a gavel.
Inside, two hearts beat in sync—for justice, for love, for the boy who painted promises beneath waves, and the child he never got to meet.
---