Chapter 25 - The Call to Boston
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Lily sat cross-legged on the floor of her Boston apartment, surrounded by towering stacks of history textbooks and spiral notebooks. The summer classes she had enrolled in were rigorous, demanding a level of focus she found deeply comforting. In the pages of ancient history, she found conflicts that were safely contained in the past, entirely unlike the ones she had survived.
Her phone buzzed on the coffee table. The screen illuminated, displaying a name she had cautiously saved weeks ago but never actually dialed.
Dominic.
She stared at it for a long moment, listening to the hum of the city traffic outside her window. The relationship between them was a fragile, complex structure. He was her father, the man who had ordered her hidden, the man who had ultimately torn down his empire to save her. She did not know how to be a daughter, and he did not know how to be a father.
She picked up the phone and answered before she could overthink it.
"Hello?"
"Lily," Dominic’s deep voice came through the speaker. He sounded slightly hesitant, a tone she had never associated with the terrifying Dominic Vale. "I hope I am not interrupting your studies."
"No. I was just taking a break. Reading about the fall of the Roman Republic."
"Appropriate reading," he noted dryly, eliciting a small, unexpected laugh from her. "How is Boston?"
"Loud. Crowded. Unpredictable," Lily answered, looking around her small, messy living room. "I love it."
"I am glad. Have you spoken to Victoria?"
"She came by last week. She brought tea and didn't mention the past once. It was nice. Strange, but nice."
A heavy, comfortable silence stretched over the line. Neither of them rushed to fill it with empty platitudes.
"I wanted to let you know," Dominic finally said, his voice lowering, "that the legal transition of your name has been finalized. Your birth certificate has been unsealed and amended. You are officially Lily Sofia Ashford. No one can ever erase it again."
Lily touched the silver bird pendant at her throat, her eyes filling with sudden, stinging tears. She thought of Elena, of the dark nursery, of the seventeen years of stolen identity.
"Thank you," she whispered, her voice cracking slightly.
"You do not need to thank me for giving you what was always yours, Lily. I will let you get back to Rome. Call me if you need anything."
"I will. Dominic?"
"Yes?"
May you like
"I'll call you next week. Just to talk."
"I would like that very much."
