Chap­ter 11: The events unfold­ed rapid­ly, with the ten­sion between Aidan and I grow­ing as we moved away from the recep­tion at Osprey Lodge. He led me deep­er into the thick, shad­owed pine trees, a place that seemed to mir­ror the con­fu­sion I was feel­ing. It was there that Aidan con­front­ed me about the phone I had tak­en, a deci­sion I had made out of con­fu­sion and des­per­a­tion. I apol­o­gized sin­cere­ly, explain­ing how I felt like I was miss­ing pieces of the puz­zle. His expres­sion was seri­ous, and he warned me about “them,” a group that he believed posed a dan­ger­ous threat. His words were cryp­tic, and as he con­tin­ued to share details, I real­ized just how deep and dark Hugo’s involve­ment was, with con­nec­tions to human traf­fick­ing and a his­to­ry of crim­i­nal actions.

Aidan’s para­noia about Hugo’s watch­ful eye was pal­pa­ble, his con­cerns for me grow­ing as he expressed fear about what might hap­pen if we weren’t cau­tious. Then, he shift­ed the focus to his mother’s dete­ri­o­rat­ing men­tal health, a sit­u­a­tion that had spi­raled out of con­trol after Dawn Tag­gart’s vis­it. Aidan made it clear that ther­a­py was no longer enough, warn­ing me that if the sit­u­a­tion wasn’t han­dled del­i­cate­ly, his moth­er could find her­self in legal trou­ble. I tried to sug­gest that she need­ed prop­er med­ical treat­ment, but Aidan dis­missed my con­cerns, unwill­ing to con­front the sever­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion. It was evi­dent that his per­spec­tive was cloud­ed by the tur­moil with­in his fam­i­ly, and it left me ques­tion­ing how much more I could trust his judg­ment.

Feel­ing frus­trat­ed and des­per­ate for answers, my thoughts shift­ed to Mag­gie, who seemed entan­gled in a web of lies and secrets sur­round­ing the wed­ding. Aidan reas­sured me that she was safe and that she would­n’t reveal the dan­ger­ous truths sur­round­ing the events, but I could­n’t shake the feel­ing that some­thing was being hid­den from me. I decid­ed that I could­n’t rely on vague reas­sur­ances and need­ed to con­front Mag­gie direct­ly. With the map of Osprey Cove that I had kept hid­den in my pock­et, I made the deci­sion to find her, hop­ing that she held the key to under­stand­ing the truth. The night had grown dark­er, and the woods around me seemed more oppres­sive with each step I took, but I pressed on, feel­ing a deep sense of urgency.

After what felt like an eter­ni­ty, I final­ly reached the Hum­ming­bird cot­tage, where the faint light spilling from the win­dows offered a glim­mer of hope. But as I stepped inside, I felt an eerie pres­ence that made my heart race, and I instinc­tive­ly grabbed a near­by wine bot­tle for pro­tec­tion. When I pushed open the slight­ly ajar door, I was con­front­ed with a scene that I couldn’t have pre­pared for: Mag­gie in a vul­ner­a­ble state, with Errol Gard­ner loom­ing over her. My anger surged, and I act­ed on instinct, attack­ing him with a force I didn’t know I had.

The strug­gle was chaot­ic, and time seemed to stretch as I tried to over­pow­er Errol, my focus sole­ly on pro­tect­ing Mag­gie. As I fought, her scream echoed in the room, fuel­ing my deter­mi­na­tion to stop what­ev­er was hap­pen­ing. Just as I was on the verge of gain­ing con­trol, a sud­den blow to my head sent me into a daze, and the world around me spun out of con­trol. My last con­scious thought was of Hugo rush­ing into the room, his pres­ence adding yet anoth­er lay­er of con­fu­sion to an already chaot­ic sit­u­a­tion. In that moment, I real­ized that Mag­gie had seen Hugo, but she said noth­ing, choos­ing to remain silent. The dark­ness closed in around me, and I was left pow­er­less, unsure of what had just hap­pened but know­ing that every­thing was about to change.