Chapter 6 - THE WOMAN HE COULD NOT SACRIFICE
Victor’s men came through the windows, roof, and rear door at the same time.
Marcus Vale jerked Clara backward.
The syringe scratched her neck.
Clara reacted on instinct.
She drove her heel into his foot, twisted his wrist, and slammed his forearm against the counter.
The syringe fell.
Victor crossed the room in three strides.
He hit Vale once.
The doctor crashed against the refrigerator.
Samuel ran.
Roman caught him outside.
Thirty seconds later, it was over.
Clara stood in the middle of her ruined kitchen, breathing hard.
Victor touched the red mark on her neck.
“Did he inject you?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m a doctor.”
“You’re shaking.”
“So are you.”
Victor looked down.
His right hand was trembling.
That frightened Clara more than the attack.
Victor Kaine did not shake.
“You thought he hurt me.”
“Yes.”
“And that scared you.”
His eyes met hers.
“Yes.”
No joke.
No denial.
Clara suddenly became aware of how close they were.
Then police sirens sounded.
Victor stepped away.
“Those aren’t ours.”
Clara stared.
“You have police?”
“I have relationships.”
“That is the most criminal way anyone has ever said yes.”
Even Victor smiled.
But the smile disappeared when Roman entered.
“Samuel’s gone.”
Victor’s head snapped toward him.
“What?”
“One of the responding officers helped him escape.”
The corruption ran deeper than they thought.
Marcus Vale, however, remained.
And Vale was terrified.
Clara insisted on questioning him herself.
They took him to a safe property outside the city.
Vale sat handcuffed across from her.
He looked smaller than he had at the medical board.
“You testified that I was incompetent.”
Vale looked down.
“You altered Daniel’s scan.”
Silence.
“You made me believe I killed him.”
“I followed instructions.”
Clara laughed bitterly.
“That’s what cowards call choices after they regret them.”
Vale’s face tightened.
“Elias would have killed my family.”
“So you destroyed mine.”
“I didn’t know what else to do.”
Clara leaned forward.
“You could have told me.”
Vale finally looked at her.
“Your father told people.”
That hurt.
Victor stood behind the glass, listening.
Vale continued.
“Nathan believed truth protected people. It didn’t. Truth killed him.”
Clara stood.
“No. Men like you killed him.”
She walked out.
Victor followed her into the hallway.
“You got what you needed.”
“No.”
Clara looked through the glass.
“I got what I thought I needed.”
“And?”
“It doesn’t give me two years back.”
Victor understood that kind of loss.
That night, Clara could not sleep.
She found Victor in the mansion library at 2 a.m.
He was shirtless beneath an open robe, changing the dressing she had placed over his wound.
“You tore a stitch.”
“I noticed.”
“Sit.”
He obeyed.
Clara cleaned the wound.
For several minutes neither spoke.
Then Victor said, “I was engaged once.”
Clara looked up.
He had never volunteered anything personal.
“Her name was Elena.”
“What happened?”
“She died.”
Clara waited.
“Elias arranged it. Car bomb. She was twenty-six.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I loved her. Afterward, I decided loving someone was simply giving your enemies an address.”
Clara’s hands slowed.
“And now?”
Victor looked at her.
“Now I’m making the same mistake.”
The air changed.
Clara tied off the fresh stitch.
“You think I’m a mistake?”
“I think wanting you alive more than I want revenge makes me vulnerable.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“In my world, it is.”
Clara stepped between his knees.
“Maybe your world is wrong.”
Victor’s gaze dropped briefly to her lips.
Then back to her eyes.
He did not touch her.
“Tell me to stop.”
“You haven’t started anything.”
His hand lifted.
Slowly.
Giving her every opportunity to move.
His fingers brushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
Clara’s breath caught.
Then Roman burst through the door.
“Sorry.”
Victor closed his eyes.
Roman almost looked amused.
“Very sorry.”
“What?”
“We opened the locket.”
Clara immediately stepped back.
Inside the silver casing was a strip of microfilm.
But Nathan had added something else.
Coordinates.
A warehouse on the old waterfront.
Victor recognized it.
His father’s first legitimate shipping company.
They went before sunrise.
Beneath a false floor, they discovered boxes of financial records.
Enough evidence to destroy Elias’s network.
But one file stopped Victor cold.
It contained adoption records.
Clara saw her own name.
“What is that?”
Victor opened the folder.
Her birth certificate was inside.
Mother: Evelyn Hayes.
Father:
Blank.
Clara frowned.
“My father was Nathan Hayes.”
Roman found another document.
A DNA report.
Old.
Faded.
Clara read the name twice.
Then a third time.
Her biological father was not Nathan Hayes.
It was Samuel Grayson.
Clara nearly dropped the paper.
“No.”
Victor took it.
The dates aligned.
Samuel and Evelyn had known each other before Evelyn married Nathan.
Nathan had raised Clara from infancy knowing she was not biologically his.
Clara sank onto a crate.
Every certainty in her life had shifted again.
Victor crouched.
“Nathan was your father.”
“The paper—”
“I don’t care what the paper says.”
She looked at him.
“He raised you. Loved you. Died protecting what he believed would keep you safe.”
Victor handed the document back.
“That’s a father.”
Clara began to cry.
Quietly.
Victor pulled her against him.
This time she did not resist.
For several minutes, the feared head of the Kaine Syndicate simply held a woman in a freezing warehouse while she mourned a father who had chosen her every day of her life.
Then Roman’s phone rang.
He answered.
His face changed.
“Victor.”
Victor looked up.
Roman turned the screen.
Live footage showed Samuel Grayson standing inside St. Jude’s Hospital.
Beside him were six armed men.
And behind them—
Patients.
Nurses.
Children.
Hostages.
Samuel looked directly into the camera.
“Bring me my daughter.”
May you like
Clara stopped crying.
And for the first time, she understood why Samuel had wanted her alive.
