Chapter 6 - SEVEN BELLS AT THE HOSPITAL
Damian stared at Isabelle's photograph.
She was alive.
Not a shadow in an old memory.
Not a name on a grave.
Alive in a photograph taken eleven months earlier.
He touched the image with trembling fingers.
“Where?”
Thomas looked uncomfortable.
“I promised Margaret I wouldn't reveal their location unless there was proof Victor's influence had been removed.”
“You know where Isabelle is?”
“I knew where she was.”
Damian's face hardened.
Thomas continued quickly.
“They moved after Margaret's disappearance. I haven't seen either woman since spring.”
“Why?”
“Because someone discovered the hospital account.”
Damian looked at the old man.
“What hospital account?”
Thomas pushed the pocket watch toward him.
“Your father established an emergency fund for employees who needed protection. Victor took control after his death.”
“Protection from what?”
“Threats. Coercion. People who knew too much about the family businesses.”
Thomas sighed.
“Margaret discovered Victor had been using that fund to pay people who helped him conceal stolen charitable money.”
Damian looked at Enzo.
“How many?”
“Potentially dozens,” Thomas answered. “Most probably thought they were carrying out ordinary financial instructions.”
Damian's jaw tightened.
“And Isabelle found the records.”
“She found the discrepancies first. Margaret confirmed them later.”
“Then why involve my marriage?”
Thomas looked genuinely sad.
“Because if you believed your wife, Victor lost access to everything.”
The sentence settled over Damian like a weight.
Victor had not merely wanted money.
He had needed Damian isolated.
Without Isabelle, there was nobody close enough to challenge the man Damian trusted most.
Thomas pointed toward the pocket watch.
“The key opens your father's old archive cabinet at the foundation.”
Damian stood.
“Then we're going.”
It was nearly six when they reached the historic hospital building in River North.
The original charitable wing had been renovated years earlier, but the brass clock above the entrance remained.
Damian remembered seeing Isabelle there.
She had been arranging white roses in tall glass vases.
He had asked her why one bouquet looked different.
“Because perfect flowers are boring,” she'd answered.
He had fallen in love before realizing it.
Now he entered the same building carrying his father's pocket watch.
An elderly maintenance supervisor recognized the key.
“That old cabinet?” he asked. “Been locked since the foundation moved.”
He led them into a records room behind the auditorium.
At exactly seven, the nearby church bells began ringing.
Seven slow notes.
Damian counted without breathing.
The supervisor unlocked a metal cabinet.
Inside were three narrow drawers and a sealed wooden box.
The brass key opened the box.
Damian lifted the lid.
There were old photographs.
Bank statements.
Letters.
And a leather-bound diary belonging to his father.
On the first page, written in familiar handwriting, were the words:
If my son reads this, then I have failed to protect him from the man I trusted.
Damian sat down.
His father had never written him a letter.
Not once.
Yet here was an entire diary.
He began reading.
Victor had been diverting foundation money through shell companies for years.
Damian's father discovered it shortly before his death.
But he had lacked the complete records needed to expose him.
Then Damian found a photograph inside the diary.
Victor stood beside a young woman holding a newborn baby.
The woman wasn't Margaret.
She was someone Damian recognized from childhood.
“Clara Hale,” he said.
Enzo frowned.
“Victor's sister?”
Damian nodded.
Clara had vanished from the family circle when Damian was twelve.
Victor claimed she'd moved to California.
His father never spoke about her.
Beneath the photograph, a handwritten note read:
Clara knew where the money went. Victor made certain nobody believed her.
Damian turned the page.
A final letter was addressed to him.
My son, if you ever love someone enough to trust her with your heart, do not let another man decide what she deserves.
Damian closed his eyes.
His father had understood the danger.
And Damian had made precisely the mistake he feared.
Enzo approached.
“Boss, there's more.”
Inside the wooden box was a modern envelope.
It couldn't have been placed there by Damian's father.
On the front, in Isabelle's handwriting, was one word.
Damian.
His hands shook as he opened it.
Inside lay a photograph of Lily wearing the knitted headband.
On the back Isabelle had written:
Our daughter loves yellow flowers. Please learn that before you tell her who you are.
Damian pressed the photograph to his chest.
Then he unfolded the accompanying letter.
The first paragraph began:
Damian, if you found this, Elena has done what I couldn't. She brought our little girl home.
He read on.
Then his expression changed.
Enzo saw the color leave his face.
“What is it?”
Damian handed him the last page.
Written beneath Isabelle's signature was a sentence neither man had expected.
Victor knows I'm alive. He has known since the night I escaped the river.
May you like
And below it:
He isn't trying to find me anymore. He's trying to make sure I never come home.
