Chapter 14 - A Dead Man’s NameDamen did not believe her.
Not at first.
Viktor Voss had been buried twelve years earlier beneath a black granite headstone outside Providence.
Damen had stood beside the coffin.
He had watched it lowered into the ground.
But Evelyn knew details she should not have known.
The scar across Viktor’s left palm.
His habit of tapping his wedding ring twice against a glass before drinking.
The name of the private school Damen attended at fourteen.
Most disturbing of all, she knew what Viktor had called his son when no one else was listening.
Wolf cub.
Damen hadn’t heard the words since the funeral.
“Where?” he demanded.
“A hotel in Montreal.”
“Why were you there?”
“Because he contacted me.”
“Why?”
“He wanted Margaret’s ledger.”
Damen stared at her across the cottage kitchen.
Sera stood beside him.
Not behind.
Beside.
“When?” Damen asked.
“June.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That I didn’t have it.”
“And?”
“He believed me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this yesterday?”
Evelyn’s laugh was bitter.
“Because yesterday I wasn’t certain whether you were working for him.”
Marcus shifted.
Damen’s expression turned lethal.
“Choose your next words carefully.”
“Viktor Voss was involved with Charles Whitaker. Your uncle Adrian too. Margaret discovered both names.”
Damen stepped forward.
Sera caught his hand.
That single touch stopped him.
Evelyn continued.
“Your father disappeared from public life because someone needed the world to believe he was dead.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You know more than you’re saying.”
“Yes.”
“At least you’re learning honesty.”
Evelyn looked at Sera.
“Margaret believed the network was bigger than Whitaker Capital. Bigger than Hargrove Shipping. Bigger than the Voss organization.”
“What network?” Sera asked.
“Men who purchased influence through fear. Judges. Businessmen. Police officers. Doctors. They protected one another.”
Sera felt sick.
Grant’s ability to make reports disappear.
His access to private clinics.
The officers who had ignored her.
The judges who had treated her injuries as inconvenient complications.
It had never been one powerful husband.
It had been a system.
And Margaret had found part of it years earlier.
Damen took the ledger.
“We’re leaving.”
“Where?” Sera asked.
“Home.”
“And then?”
Damen looked toward the ocean.
“Then I dig up my father.”
Two days later, beneath a cold Rhode Island rain, Viktor Voss’s grave was opened under private court authorization arranged through Claudia.
Sera waited beneath a black umbrella.
Damen stood beside the excavation without one.
The coffin emerged after forty minutes.
Marcus opened it.
Everyone went silent.
Inside were human remains.
But Claudia’s forensic specialist needed less than an hour to find the first impossibility.
The body had undergone an old orthopedic repair in the right femur.
Viktor Voss had never broken his right leg.
Adrian had.
Damen stared at the coffin.
His dead uncle had been buried under his father’s name.
Which meant two things.
Adrian Voss was dead.
And Viktor had arranged his own disappearance.
That evening, Damen stood alone in the estate’s underground wine cellar.
He had smashed three bottles against the wall.
Sera found him holding a fourth.
He didn’t turn.
“Leave me alone.”
“No.”
“Sera.”
“No.”
His hand tightened around the bottle.
“My entire life was built on his rules.”
She approached slowly.
“He taught me loyalty. Family. Discipline. Every violent thing I ever did, I justified because Viktor Voss taught me there were lines even men like us didn’t cross.”
Sera stopped beside him.
“And now?”
“Now I don’t know what he was.”
She gently took the bottle from his hand.
Damen let her.
For once, she was the steady one.
“You told me something once,” she whispered.
He looked at her.
“You said I didn’t need you to save me. I needed someone to hold the dark back until I remembered who I was.”
His eyes softened painfully.
Sera put the bottle on the shelf.
“Maybe tonight it’s my turn.”
Damen closed his eyes.
She wrapped her arms around him.
For several seconds, he stood rigid.
Then the most feared man in Rhode Island lowered his forehead against his wife’s shoulder.
And let himself be held.
At 11:42 P.M., Marcus entered the cellar.
“Boss.”
Damen straightened.
“What?”
“We received a call on the private line.”
“Who?”
Marcus looked at Sera.
Then back at Damen.
“He said his name is Viktor.”
Silence.
“And?”
“He wants to meet you.”
“Where?”
“Tomorrow night. Boston.”
Damen’s jaw tightened.
Marcus hesitated.
“He said you must come alone.”
Sera already knew Damen’s answer.
So did Marcus.
May you like
Then Marcus added the final message.
“He also said if Sera comes anywhere near him, he’ll tell her what really happened to her mother.”
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