Chapter 6 - THE SECRET DAMON BURIED FOR FIVE YEARS
Damon did not speak until they were alone.
Lena sat in her hospital room, pale beneath the fluorescent light.
Outside the door, officers stood guard.
Inside, Damon looked like a man preparing to destroy the fragile trust they had only just begun rebuilding.
“Five years ago,” he said, “after the money disappeared, I found out Victor wasn't working alone.”
Lena waited.
“You knew?”
“Not at first.”
“Who helped him?”
“My father.”
The room went silent.
Lena stared at him.
“Thomas Cross?”
“Yes.”
Thomas Cross had been one of the most respected commercial developers in Wisconsin.
He was also the man who had treated Lena like family from the time she was sixteen.
She had eaten Thanksgiving dinner at his house.
He had helped Lena and Damon finance their first office.
When Thomas died four years earlier from a heart attack, Lena had attended the funeral from the back row because she and Damon were no longer speaking.
“No,” she whispered.
Damon's expression didn't change.
“My father had invested heavily in Victor's company. Victor was drowning in debt even then.”
“Why steal from us?”
“Victor needed cash. My father needed Victor's business alive long enough to sell his position.”
“So your father helped him frame you?”
“Yes.”
Lena looked physically sick.
“You found proof?”
“After the fact.”
“And you hid it.”
“I confronted my father.”
“What happened?”
“He begged me not to expose him.”
Damon's voice was quiet.
“My mother had just been diagnosed with cancer. Dad said the scandal would destroy her. He promised he'd repay every dollar and cut ties with Victor.”
“Did he?”
“He repaid the money into an account I created for you.”
Lena blinked.
“What account?”
“You never touched it.”
“Because I didn't know it existed.”
“I sent the documents through your attorney.”
“Victor handled our lawyer.”
Damon closed his eyes briefly.
Of course he had.
Lena stood despite the pain.
“So you knew Victor was involved in framing you and you didn't tell me.”
“I tried.”
“You didn't try hard enough.”
“You were marrying him.”
“Then you should have kicked down the church doors!”
Her voice cracked.
“You should have shown me everything!”
“My father would have gone to prison.”
“And instead I married the man who tried to murder me!”
Damon took the words without defending himself.
Tears filled Lena's eyes.
“You let me believe you betrayed me.”
“Yes.”
“You let Victor win.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Damon finally raised his voice.
“Because I was a coward!”
Silence.
The admission hit harder than an excuse would have.
Damon looked away.
“I told myself I was protecting my mother. Then my father died and I told myself telling you wouldn't change anything. You were married. You looked happy.”
“I wasn't.”
“I know that now.”
“You should have told me.”
“I know.”
Lena wiped her face.
“Get out.”
Damon nodded.
He walked toward the door.
Then Lena said, “Wait.”
He stopped.
She hated him for keeping the truth.
She hated herself more for understanding why.
“Is there still proof?”
“Yes.”
“Everything?”
“Bank records. Emails. My father's handwritten statement.”
Her eyes widened.
“He confessed?”
“Two weeks before he died.”
“Where is it?”
“In my private office safe.”
Lena looked toward the hallway.
“If Victor knew your father was involved, he knows that statement could destroy him.”
Damon turned.
The anger vanished from both their faces.
They understood at the same moment.
Victor's call hadn't been meant only to divide them.
He had been testing whether Damon had finally told Lena the truth.
“Your office,” Lena said.
Damon pulled out his phone.
Rick didn't answer.
He called again.
Nothing.
Damon left immediately with two officers.
When he arrived at Cross Development forty minutes later, the building's front glass door was shattered.
His stomach tightened.
“Rick!”
No answer.
They moved through the dark office.
Furniture had been overturned.
Files covered the floor.
The door to Damon's private office hung crooked from one hinge.
The safe was open.
Empty.
Damon stared.
“Impossible.”
One officer checked the electronic lock.
“Someone had the code.”
Only three people knew it.
Damon.
Rick.
And Damon's late father.
Damon called Rick again.
A phone rang from behind the conference-room wall.
He followed the sound.
Rick's cell lay on the carpet.
A small smear of blood marked the floor.
Damon's face changed.
“Find him.”
Police searched the building.
No Rick.
No handwritten confession.
No forensic records.
Victor had taken everything.
Then one detective called from the parking garage.
They found Rick inside Damon's SUV.
Alive.
Barely.
He had been beaten unconscious.
At the hospital, Rick regained consciousness long enough to say four words.
“Calvin took the files.”
Calvin Moore was alive.
And apparently still working for Victor.
Detective Vega immediately issued a warrant.
But Lena had another problem.
The next morning, Sophie's breathing suddenly worsened.
Doctors rushed around the incubator.
Lena stood outside helplessly as alarms sounded.
“What happened?” she demanded.
Dr. Hayes emerged fifteen minutes later.
“She has an infection.”
“Is she going to die?”
“We're treating it aggressively.”
Lena pressed both hands against her mouth.
Damon stood several feet away.
He had returned despite her anger.
He didn't approach.
Lena turned toward him.
“Come here.”
He did.
She grabbed his hand.
“I'm still angry with you.”
“I know.”
“I may stay angry for a long time.”
“I know.”
“But don't leave.”
His fingers closed around hers.
“I won't.”
They spent the night outside the NICU together.
At two in the morning, Lena fell asleep against his shoulder.
At four, Detective Vega arrived.
She carried a laptop.
“We found something.”
Lena immediately woke.
“What?”
“Calvin made a mistake.”
Vega opened a map.
“His SUV has a factory tracking system. He disabled the primary GPS, but not the emergency telematics module.”
“Where is he?”
“A hunting property ninety miles north.”
“Victor's?”
“Owned by a shell company.”
Damon leaned closer.
Vega continued.
“SWAT is moving in now.”
Lena's heart pounded.
“If Calvin has the confession—”
“We may get it back.”
At 5:17 a.m., officers entered the remote cabin.
Calvin Moore was gone.
But the cabin wasn't empty.
They found burned papers in the fireplace.
Blood on the kitchen floor.
Victor's prepaid phone packaging.
And beneath a loose floorboard, a metal lockbox.
Inside was $180,000 cash.
Three fake passports.
A pistol.
And a digital recorder.
Detective Vega played the first file for Lena.
Victor's voice filled the hospital consultation room.
“How long does someone survive at minus fifty?”
Calvin answered.
“Pregnant?”
“Yes.”
“Not long.”
“What if she gets found?”
“Then you better hope she can't talk.”
Lena closed her eyes.
There it was.
Proof.
But the recording continued.
Calvin's voice:
“And Cross?”
Victor laughed.
“Damon Cross has been waiting five years to save her.”
A pause.
“He'll walk straight into the scene and hand us his fingerprints.”
Damon looked at Lena.
Victor had known.
He knew Damon still cared about her.
Victor had built his murder plan around it.
Then came another voice from the recording.
A woman's voice.
“Victor, you're forgetting the twins.”
Lena's eyes opened.
She knew that voice.
Damon frowned.
“Who is that?”
Lena became deathly pale.
“No.”
“Lena?”
She stared at the recorder.
“That can't be.”
Vega paused the audio.
“You recognize her?”
Lena nodded slowly.
“It's my sister.”
And just like that, the betrayal became larger than her marriage.
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Because Lena's younger sister, Natalie, had been the woman holding her hand when she married Victor Carter.
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