Chapter 2 - The Family at Her Door
Elena had spent seven years working in hospitals.
She had watched frightened people become calm in emergencies and calm people become useless.
She had always believed she belonged to the first group.
That belief disappeared the moment she saw her bedroom window hanging open.
Cold air poured through shattered glass.
Her curtain lifted and fell like a ghost breathing in the dark.
“Elena,” Damian said through the phone. “Can you reach the hallway?”
“There’s someone at my front door.”
“Cross family lawyers.”
“And someone just came through my bedroom window.”
Damian did not hesitate.
“Bathroom. Lock yourself inside.”
Elena ran.
She slammed the bathroom door and turned the lock as footsteps entered her bedroom.
Not hurried footsteps.
Careful ones.
Someone opened a drawer.
Then another.
Whoever had broken in was not looking for Elena.
They were searching.
Her front door suddenly shook.
A man shouted from the hallway.
“Chicago Police!”
Elena froze.
Damian said, “I sent security, not police.”
That was enough.
She stayed where she was.
Thirty seconds later, shouting erupted in the apartment.
A body slammed against something.
Glass broke again.
Then silence.
“Elena?” Damian asked.
Before she could answer, another voice came through the door.
“Miss Carter? Dominic Shaw. I work for Damian Cross. I’m sliding identification under the door.”
A security card appeared beneath it.
Elena photographed it and sent it to Damian.
“That’s him,” Damian confirmed.
Only then did she open the door.
Her apartment looked as though a small storm had passed through it.
One bedroom drawer had been emptied.
Her desk had been searched.
But her television remained.
So did her jewelry.
Cash in a kitchen envelope was untouched.
“They weren’t robbing you,” Dominic said.
“No.”
Elena looked toward the desk.
“They wanted something.”
Twenty minutes later, Damian arrived.
Beatrice Hale and the Cross family representatives were still waiting in the hall.
Damian walked straight past them.
His dark coat was unbuttoned. Snow had melted in his hair.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Did anyone touch you?”
“No.”
He looked toward Dominic.
“The intruder?”
“Fire escape. Gone before we reached the bedroom.”
Damian’s jaw tightened.
Beatrice finally entered.
“Damian, this situation has become unnecessarily theatrical.”
He turned.
“You came to a pregnant woman’s home without telling me.”
“We came to protect a potential Cross heir.”
“He isn’t a Cross heir,” Elena snapped.
Beatrice’s eyes moved to her stomach.
“You cannot possibly know what information we possess.”
Elena hated that sentence.
Beatrice opened a leather folder.
Inside was a document titled MATERNAL PROTECTION AND CONFIDENTIALITY AGREEMENT.
It offered Elena a luxury apartment.
Twenty-four-hour security.
Private medical care.
A driver.
A monthly allowance larger than her nursing salary.
In exchange, she would agree to refrain from public statements, submit to approved medical supervision, and permit DNA testing at an appropriate stage of pregnancy.
Elena closed the folder.
“No.”
Beatrice seemed surprised.
“You haven’t read all of it.”
“I read enough.”
“This could protect your child.”
“My child already has a mother.”
Damian took the folder from the table.
He flipped through two pages.
His expression hardened.
“Who authorized this?”
“Victor.”
“Of course.”
Beatrice remained composed.
“Your uncle is attempting to prevent a scandal.”
“My uncle is the scandal.”
Damian tore the agreement in half.
Beatrice’s face finally changed.
“You should be careful.”
“Is that advice?”
“It’s reality.”
She left with the other representatives.
After the door closed, Elena turned on Damian.
“Tell me everything about Eric.”
Damian looked toward the broken window.
“Not here.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Elena, someone broke into your apartment twenty minutes after my family reached your door.”
“And somehow that makes your house safer?”
“No.”
He met her eyes.
“It makes anywhere they don’t know about safer.”
She almost refused.
Then she looked at the drawers scattered across her bedroom.
“What were they searching for?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said Eric took financial records.”
“He was a senior forensic analyst in a compliance division at Cross Urban.”
Elena stared.
“He told me he worked in corporate accounting.”
“That was technically true.”
“What did he find?”
“We believe he discovered transactions connected to Victor.”
“What kind?”
“Shell companies. Cash movement. Construction payoffs. Maybe worse.”
“And you didn’t go to the police?”
Damian gave her a cold, humorless look.
“My family has spent decades learning which police officers can be bought.”
The honesty chilled her.
He walked to the desk.
“What did Eric leave here?”
“Nothing.”
“Think.”
“He had clothes. A toothbrush. A charger.”
“Documents?”
“No.”
“Flash drives?”
“I don’t know.”
“Keys?”
Elena opened her mouth.
Then stopped.
Two nights before disappearing, Eric had handed her a small silver keychain shaped like a compass.
She had laughed at it.
He had said, For when the baby asks which direction we’re going.
At the time, she had believed it meant he planned to stay.
Now she went to her purse.
The keychain was gone.
Her stomach dropped.
“It was here.”
“What?”
“A silver compass Eric gave me.”
Damian turned toward the bedroom.
“That may be what they wanted.”
“But why?”
“Because Eric didn’t trust cloud storage.”
“How do you know?”
“I hired him.”
That surprised her.
“You hired Eric?”
“Against Victor’s objections.”
The room suddenly felt much smaller.
Damian continued.
“Eric told me six months ago that our compliance department had been compromised. I told him to investigate quietly.”
“And then he disappeared.”
“Yes.”
“So this is your fault.”
Damian absorbed the accusation without flinching.
“In part.”
Elena looked away.
Her phone buzzed.
A message from Camille.
Are you okay? There are reporters outside Mom’s house.
Elena felt sick.
This had spread beyond her.
To her sister.
Her mother.
Her hospital.
Her unborn child.
“I’ll go somewhere secure,” she finally said. “But not your home.”
Damian nodded.
“I own an apartment through a company that isn’t connected publicly to me.”
“That sentence does not make me feel better.”
“It shouldn’t. But it’s safe.”
Marisol insisted on accompanying Elena.
By midnight, the three of them were inside a quiet condominium overlooking the river.
There were no family photographs.
No personal objects.
Only clean furniture and large windows covered by motorized shades.
Marisol inspected every room.
“If there’s a dungeon,” she told Damian, “I’m calling the police.”
“There isn’t.”
“You answered too quickly.”
For the first time, Elena saw the corner of Damian’s mouth almost move.
Almost.
Then Dominic entered carrying a sealed evidence bag.
“We found this beneath the fire escape.”
Inside was Elena’s silver compass keychain.
Damian put on gloves.
He turned it over.
A thin seam ran around the edge.
Using a knife, he opened it.
Inside was a tiny memory card.
Elena stared.
Eric really had hidden something in it.
Dominic inserted the card into an offline laptop.
Folders appeared.
Invoices.
Bank transfers.
Photographs.
Audio recordings.
Then one directory caught Damian’s attention.
V. CROSS — PRIVATE.
He opened it.
Hundreds of transaction records filled the screen.
Marisol whispered, “That looks expensive.”
Damian said nothing.
He scrolled.
Then stopped.
One line showed a payment to a company called Northstar Medical Consulting.
Another showed a transfer to a private security contractor.
A third contained Eric Sloan’s name.
$250,000.
Paid three days after he vanished.
Elena’s knees weakened.
“No.”
Damian stared at the screen.
The payment description contained only two words.
SERVICE COMPLETED.
Elena backed away.
“You said he was running from Victor.”
“I thought he was.”
“What if Eric worked for him?”
“I don’t know.”
Another file appeared beneath the payment record.
An audio recording.
Damian clicked it.
Static filled the room.
Then Eric’s voice.
Tired.
Terrified.
“If anyone finds this, Victor knows about Elena.”
Elena stopped breathing.
Eric continued.
“He knows she’s pregnant.”
Damian looked at her.
“He said he’ll use them if I don’t return what I copied.”
A door slammed somewhere in the recording.
Eric’s breathing accelerated.
Then came one final sentence.
“Damian cannot know where I hid the original ledger.”
The recording ended.
Silence swallowed the room.
Elena slowly turned toward Damian.
Eric had been afraid of Victor.
But apparently he had been afraid of Damian too.
Before anyone could speak, Dominic’s phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed instantly.
“What?”
He moved toward the window.
“When?”
A long pause.
Then he looked directly at Damian.
“Someone just found Eric Sloan.”
Elena’s heart slammed against her ribs.
“Where?”
May you like
Dominic swallowed.
“Three blocks from here.”
