Chapter 6 - HIS MOTHER’S FINAL MESSAGE
They returned to the estate before dawn.
Nicholas was alive but still hospitalized.
Federal investigators were moving toward Harrow Street.
Time was disappearing.
Damian entered his bedroom with Claire.
For the first time since the night began, the bloodstained dress was gone.
But its mark remained on the carpet.
Claire stared at it.
“Feels like a week ago.”
Damian looked at her.
“It’s been five hours.”
“That’s worse.”
Marcus had said Victoria hid evidence here.
But Damian’s bedroom had been renovated twice.
Walls replaced.
Floors changed.
Claire began examining the room.
“What belonged to your mother?”
“Almost nothing.”
“Think.”
Damian looked around.
Then at the fireplace.
“The mantel.”
They approached it.
Claire examined the carved wood.
One decorative flower was slightly different from the others.
She pressed it.
A narrow compartment opened.
Inside was a cassette tape.
Damian stared.
Claire whispered, “Your mother knew.”
They found an old player in the basement archive.
Damian inserted the tape.
Static.
Then a woman’s voice.
“If Damian ever hears this, I failed.”
He closed his eyes.
He had forgotten the exact sound of his mother’s voice.
Claire took his hand.
Victoria continued.
“Arthur knows I discovered the accounts. Evelyn knows too.”
Damian opened his eyes.
“Evelyn helped Arthur create the system. She believes everything we have belongs to the Cross family, even if innocent people paid for it.”
The tape crackled.
“I gave copies to Thomas Bennett.”
Claire began crying.
“Thomas is a good man. He has two little girls. If anything happens to me, I pray Arthur leaves them alone.”
Claire covered her mouth.
Victoria’s final words came slowly.
“Damian, if you become your father, then he wins twice.”
The tape ended.
Damian sat silently.
Claire stayed beside him.
Finally he said, “I spent my entire life trying not to become him.”
“You didn’t.”
“You don’t know everything I’ve done.”
“No.”
Claire looked at him.
“But I know what you’re doing now.”
Damian met her eyes.
She squeezed his hand.
“You’re choosing.”
That mattered more than forgiveness.
A sound came from the doorway.
Evelyn stood there.
She held a gun.
“I always hated that recording.”
Damian moved in front of Claire.
Evelyn smiled.
“Still protecting her.”
“Yes.”
“How touching.”
“You killed my mother.”
“Arthur ordered it.”
“You helped.”
“I protected you.”
Damian laughed once.
“You murdered my mother to protect me?”
“She was going to destroy everything.”
“She was trying to save me.”
Evelyn’s expression hardened.
“You have no idea what your father built.”
“I know exactly what he built.”
Damian stepped forward.
“A prison.”
Evelyn raised the gun.
Claire noticed something behind her.
Nicholas.
Pale, wounded, one arm supported by a sling.
He had left the hospital.
Evelyn did not see him.
Nicholas spoke.
“Aunt Evelyn.”
She turned.
Damian moved.
The gun fired.
Claire screamed.
Damian hit the floor.
For one terrible second, Claire thought he had been shot.
Then she saw Evelyn.
Nicholas had tackled her arm upward.
The bullet had struck the ceiling.
Damian disarmed her.
Evelyn stared at both brothers.
“You would destroy your own family?”
Nicholas leaned against the wall.
“No.”
He looked at Damian.
“We’re trying to save what’s left of it.”
Sirens surrounded the estate.
Evelyn heard them.
Her face changed.
“You called them here?”
Damian nodded.
“You’re finished.”
Evelyn laughed.
“You think prison frightens me?”
“No.”
Damian looked at Claire.
“Being forgotten will.”
Federal agents entered minutes later.
Evelyn Cross was arrested in the hallway of the mansion she had controlled for decades.
As she passed Claire, she whispered:
“This doesn’t end with me.”
Claire watched her go.
She believed her.
Because one mystery remained.
Thomas Bennett had supposedly kept copies of Victoria’s evidence.
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But no copies had ever been found.
And somewhere, someone else had spent twenty-two years looking for them.
