Chapter 6 - A Heartbeat in the Dark
Damian woke to the sound of a heartbeat.
Fast.
Rhythmic.
Alive.
His eyes opened.
White ceiling.
Hospital lights.
Pain.
Then he heard it again.
Thump-thump-thump-thump.
He turned his head.
Isabelle lay in a hospital bed across the room while a technician moved an ultrasound probe over her stomach.
Damian tried to sit up.
Pain shot through his side.
Isabelle looked over.
“You're awake.”
“What happened?”
“You were shot.”
“I remember.”
“Apparently bullets don't improve your personality.”
He looked toward the monitor.
“What is that sound?”
Isabelle's expression softened despite herself.
“Our baby.”
Damian stopped moving.
The technician glanced between them.
“Would you like to see?”
He couldn't answer.
Isabelle could have said no.
After everything, she had every right.
Instead, she moved her hand slightly.
“Show him.”
The technician angled the screen.
Damian Hale had seen men die.
He had watched buildings burn.
He had stood over his father's coffin without shedding a tear because at twenty-seven he had believed grief was a weakness enemies could smell.
But a grainy black-and-white image destroyed every defense he had.
A tiny shape.
A flickering heartbeat.
His child.
His eyes filled.
Isabelle saw.
Damian looked away.
“Don't,” she said.
He looked back.
“Don't what?”
“Hide.”
His jaw tightened.
Then he let the tears come.
No dramatic sobbing.
Just two silent lines down the face of a man who had spent his entire adult life refusing to cry.
Isabelle reached for his hand before remembering she was angry with him.
Her fingers stopped.
Damian noticed.
He did not take them.
That mattered more than she expected.
The doctor eventually cleared Isabelle.
Damian required surgery, but the bullet had missed major organs.
Lucas arrived the next morning.
“We identified two attackers.”
“Vale?”
“Connected to one of his security companies.”
Damian's eyes hardened.
“Grant?”
“Gone.”
Damian sat up.
“What?”
“Someone hit the holding facility during the attack on Emma's house. They knew exactly when our manpower shifted.”
Marcus Vale.
Grant had been bait.
The attack on Isabelle forced Damian to move security resources.
Vale used the opening to free him.
“Where are they?”
“We don't know.”
Damian looked toward Isabelle, asleep in the chair beside his bed.
Lucas followed his gaze.
“You almost died protecting her.”
“I'd do it again.”
“That's not the problem.”
Damian frowned.
Lucas lowered his voice.
“You think taking a bullet settles your debt.”
“No.”
“Good. Because it doesn't.”
Damian looked at his oldest remaining friend.
“When did everyone become comfortable lecturing me?”
“Somewhere around the time your wife proved it wouldn't get us killed.”
Isabelle's eyes opened.
“I heard that.”
Lucas smiled.
“I hoped you would.”
Damian didn't.
Three days later, Damian was discharged.
Isabelle returned to Emma's.
He didn't argue.
Instead, he rented a house six minutes away.
When she discovered it, she called him.
“You bought the house down the road?”
“Rented.”
“That's supposed to sound less insane?”
“Yes.”
“It doesn't.”
“I need to remain nearby until Grant and Vale are found.”
“You have hotels.”
“I don't like hotels.”
“You own three.”
“Exactly. Terrible management.”
She almost laughed.
He heard it.
“Was that a laugh?”
“No.”
“It sounded—”
“Goodbye, Damian.”
She hung up.
For the next two weeks, he did something Isabelle had never seen him do.
Nothing.
He didn't pressure her.
Didn't send flowers.
Didn't use their child as leverage.
He attended medical appointments only when invited.
At the second ultrasound, he sat in the corner because Isabelle had not offered the chair beside her.
At the third, she pointed to it.
“Sit. You're making the nurse nervous.”
Progress came in inches.
Meanwhile, the search for Grant continued.
Then Isabelle received a package.
No return address.
Inside was a photograph.
Damian at twenty-seven standing beside his father.
Behind them stood Grant Doyle and Marcus Vale.
A message was written across the back.
Your husband still doesn't know who ordered his father's death.
Isabelle immediately called Damian.
He arrived four minutes later.
“You drove too fast.”
“Probably.”
“Stop doing that.”
“Yes.”
She handed him the photograph.
He read the message.
His face changed.
“Vale wants us looking at Grant.”
“Or Grant wants us looking at Vale.”
“Exactly.”
Isabelle studied the photograph.
Then noticed something.
“Damian.”
“What?”
“Your father's watch.”
He looked.
Richard Hale wore a distinctive antique watch.
“What about it?”
“I've seen it.”
“Where?”
“Grant's house.”
Damian went still.
“When?”
“Last Christmas. He kept it in a glass case in his study. I asked about it.”
“What did he say?”
“That his father gave it to him.”
Damian's face emptied of emotion.
Richard's watch had disappeared from the morgue after his death.
For fourteen years, Damian assumed it was lost in the explosion.
It wasn't.
Grant had taken it.
A trophy.
Damian reached for his phone.
Isabelle stopped him.
“Don't.”
“He killed my father.”
“You don't know that yet.”
“He had the watch.”
“And someone wants you angry enough to stop thinking.”
Damian stared at her.
Months earlier, he would have acted.
Now he lowered the phone.
“You're right.”
Isabelle released his wrist.
Both noticed their hands had touched.
Neither moved immediately.
Then Damian's phone rang.
Lucas.
“We found Grant.”
“Where?”
“Boston.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
May you like
A pause.
“And he's asking for Isabelle.”
