Chapter 4 - The Friend Who Knew Too Much
Adrian reached the porch.
Damian met him outside.
Claire watched through the window.
"Why did you access Claire's medical records?"
Adrian stopped.
Even through the glass, Claire saw the shock.
"What?"
"Answer."
"I didn't."
"Your credentials did."
Adrian looked toward the house.
"Let me explain."
Damian's expression went cold.
"Explain from there."
Matthew joined them.
Adrian saw him and understood.
"This came from him?"
"It came from hospital records."
"Then the records are wrong."
Matthew laughed.
"Convenient."
Adrian ignored him.
"Four years ago Victor asked me to verify whether Claire had visited a hospital."
Claire stepped outside.
"Why?"
Adrian looked ashamed.
"He said Damian needed to know whether you'd been injured."
"Was I?"
"No."
"And you didn't think that was strange?"
"I did."
"Then why did you do it?"
"Because Victor outranked me."
Damian's voice was quiet.
"No one outranked you except me."
Adrian looked at him.
"That's not how it felt then."
Silence.
The admission contained years of resentment.
Adrian continued.
"Victor was running half your operation while you hunted leaks. Everyone was terrified."
"Of me?"
"Yes."
Damian absorbed that.
Claire watched him.
Four years ago, he would have punished the answer.
Now he only asked, "What did you find?"
"Pregnancy confirmation."
Damian's face hardened.
"And you told Victor."
"Yes."
"Did you tell me?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Victor said he would."
Damian stepped closer.
"You saw my wife was pregnant and didn't tell me."
"I thought you knew."
"You watched her leave that night."
Adrian's eyes dropped.
"I did."
"You knew she was carrying my child."
"I suspected."
"And you let her walk out."
Adrian finally snapped.
"You told everyone she had betrayed you!"
Lily appeared behind the window.
Claire immediately turned.
The child was watching.
"Enough."
Damian saw her too.
His anger vanished beneath control.
He stepped back.
Adrian lowered his voice.
"Victor told me Claire's pregnancy might be part of a trap."
Claire stared.
"A trap?"
"He said Matthew wanted to use the baby to control Damian."
Matthew swore under his breath.
Adrian looked at Claire.
"I was wrong."
"Yes."
"I know."
"Knowing four years later is cheap."
He accepted that.
Damian asked, "Why are you telling us this now?"
"Because Victor contacted me yesterday."
Everyone went still.
"What did he say?"
"He wants the flash drive."
Matthew's face changed.
"How does he know I have it?"
Adrian looked at him.
"Because he knows you're alive."
"When did he contact you?"
"Last night."
"Why didn't you tell me immediately?" Damian asked.
"Because he threatened my son."
Damian stopped.
Adrian had a fourteen-year-old boy.
Ethan.
Claire remembered him as a toddler running through Damian's garden.
"He sent me a picture of Ethan leaving school."
Claire's anger changed shape.
Victor wasn't attacking organizations anymore.
He was attacking children.
"What does he want?" Matthew asked.
"A meeting tomorrow night."
"Where?"
"The old Blackwood shipping office."
Damian laughed once.
"Of course."
The building had been abandoned for years.
Adrian looked at him.
"He said bring the drive or he releases everything."
"What is everything?"
"I don't know."
Matthew did.
His expression told Claire before he spoke.
"The ledger."
Damian looked at him.
"What ledger?"
Matthew hesitated.
"The real reason Victor wanted Claire gone."
Claire felt suddenly cold.
"What are you talking about?"
Matthew looked at her.
"Your father."
"My father died when I was sixteen."
"Yes."
"What does he have to do with Victor?"
"More than you know."
Claire's father, Robert Mercer, had been an accountant.
Quiet.
Careful.
A man who packed her lunch every morning and listened to baseball on the radio.
He had died in a car accident.
At least that was what Claire had always believed.
Matthew opened another file.
"Robert Mercer handled accounts for Blackwood companies."
Damian frowned.
"My father?"
"Yes."
Claire stared.
"You're lying."
"I wish I were."
Matthew showed her a scanned document.
Her father's signature.
Blackwood Holdings.
Claire sat down.
Damian moved toward her but stopped before touching her.
"What happened to him?"
Matthew's answer was quiet.
"He discovered money disappearing."
"Victor?"
"Victor's father."
Damian's face changed.
Matthew continued.
"Robert copied records. He planned to expose them."
Claire couldn't breathe.
"The accident?"
"Wasn't an accident."
She stood so quickly the chair fell.
"No."
"Claire—"
"No."
She walked away.
Damian followed at a distance.
She reached the beach behind the inn.
For several minutes, neither spoke.
"My father was murdered."
Damian's voice was quiet.
"I didn't know."
"Your family did."
"My father may have."
"That helps."
"No. It doesn't."
She turned.
"Everything comes back to your world."
"I know."
"My father. My marriage. Lily."
"I know."
"And now someone is threatening children because of records your people kept."
"I know."
She hated his calmness.
Then she realized it wasn't calmness.
It was guilt.
"What are you going to do?"
"End it."
Her body tensed.
"No."
He understood.
"Not like that."
"Then how?"
"Legally."
She almost laughed.
"You?"
"I've spent four years dismantling most of what my father built."
Claire stared.
"What?"
"I don't run the organization you remember."
"Then what do you run?"
"Shipping. Security. Property."
"Legitimate?"
"Mostly."
"Mostly isn't a comforting word."
A faint grimace.
"Fair."
"Why?"
Damian looked toward the ocean.
"After you left, I became exactly what everyone expected."
Claire waited.
"For six months."
"And?"
"I hated the man I became."
He looked at her.
"Because he was the man who drove you away."
Claire's anger weakened by one degree.
Not forgiveness.
Never that quickly.
But something shifted.
Damian continued.
"I started selling everything illegal. Quietly. Victor's old network fought it."
"So this is revenge."
"Partly."
"And the rest?"
"The ledger apparently proves decades of crimes involving people who still have power."
Matthew joined them.
"There's something else."
He handed Claire a photocopy.
Her father's handwriting.
A note.
IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO ME, CLAIRE MUST NEVER KNOW UNTIL SHE IS SAFE.
Claire touched the words.
Her father's hand.
Sixteen years vanished.
For one second she was a teenager again.
Damian stood beside her.
Not touching.
Just there.
The meeting with Victor became unavoidable.
But Claire refused to let Damian go alone.
"No."
"Claire—"
"He destroyed my family before he destroyed ours."
"That's exactly why you're not going."
"Stop deciding."
Damian closed his mouth.
She stepped closer.
"You want to be Lily's father?"
"More than anything."
"Then learn this first. Her mother is not property."
Damian nodded.
"Okay."
"I'm coming."
"Okay."
Matthew stared at him.
"That easy?"
Damian looked at Claire.
"I've recently learned what happens when I don't listen."
The plan was simple.
Too simple.
Adrian would bring a fake drive.
Police Captain Helen Ward would coordinate with federal agents Matthew trusted.
Damian and Claire would remain hidden until Victor appeared.
At 11:47 p.m., Adrian entered the abandoned shipping office.
Victor did not.
A phone rang on the desk.
Adrian answered.
Victor's voice filled the empty building.
"You brought company."
Damian's face hardened.
Victor laughed.
"Did you really think I wouldn't know?"
Then Claire's phone vibrated.
A live video appeared.
The camera showed the inn.
Claire's blood stopped.
It moved toward an upstairs hallway.
Toward Lily's room.
May you like
The bedroom door slowly opened.
And the screen went black.
