Chapter 5 - THE UNCLE WHO NEVER DIED
Damon did not run outside.
That was the first thing Victor noticed.
The second was that Damon had stopped breathing.
Thomas Kane stood beyond the estate gate.
He looked older than the man in the photograph.
Older.
Tired.
But unmistakably alive.
Damon had spent seventeen years believing his uncle had died on a Pennsylvania highway.
He remembered the funeral.
The closed coffin.
His father's silence.
His mother's hand on his shoulder.
He remembered being told that Thomas had been driving alone.
Now the man was standing beneath the estate lights.
Alive.
Watching.
“Do we bring him in?” Victor asked.
Damon shook his head.
“No.”
“Then what?”
Damon looked toward Nadia.
“Keep everyone inside.”
Nadia understood immediately.
She locked the staff entrance.
Lily remained asleep.
Damon walked through the main hall alone.
He stopped before the front doors.
Then he opened them.
Thomas looked at him.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Finally Thomas said,
“You look like your father.”
Damon's voice was flat.
“You look like a dead man.”
Thomas gave a tired smile.
“I've heard worse.”
“Why are you here?”
“To see if the boy became the man I hoped he would.”
Damon's expression hardened.
“You don't get to call me a boy.”
Thomas nodded.
“No.”
He looked older suddenly.
“You don't.”
Damon stepped outside.
“You died seventeen years ago.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Vincent needed me dead.”
Damon's jaw tightened.
“Why?”
“Because I discovered what the warehouse was really being used for.”
“Money laundering?”
“Something larger.”
Thomas looked toward the estate.
“People.”
Damon said nothing.
Thomas continued.
“Your father wasn't trafficking people. He was protecting them.”
That was not what Damon expected.
Thomas explained that the Kane shipping network had once been used to move people fleeing violent criminal organizations.
Witnesses.
Families.
Informants.
People who had nowhere else to go.
Vincent Kane had built secret routes to move them safely.
But one group discovered the operation.
They demanded access.
Vincent refused.
The warehouse became the meeting point.
The fire was intended to destroy records identifying the people who had escaped through Kane routes.
Thomas had been there because he was moving the final files.
Then someone started the fire.
Elias was trapped inside.
Thomas tried to save him.
He failed.
“I've carried that failure for twenty years,” he said.
Damon stared at him.
“Why didn't you come back?”
“Because the people responsible believed I had died.”
“And my father let them believe it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To protect you.”
Damon laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“Everyone keeps saying my father protected me.”
Thomas looked at him.
“Because he did.”
“He lied to me.”
“Yes.”
“He lied about you.”
“Yes.”
“He lied about the fire.”
“Yes.”
Damon's eyes burned.
“And Nadia?”
Thomas lowered his gaze.
“She was the reason your father never forgave himself.”
Damon went still.
Thomas explained.
Nadia's son had not been the only child in the warehouse.
There had been another infant.
A baby belonging to a woman being moved through the Kane network.
That woman had died.
The child survived.
Damon's face changed.
“Who?”
Thomas looked toward the house.
“Nadia knows.”
Damon's voice became colder.
“You've been watching her.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To protect Lily.”
Damon froze.
Thomas continued.
“Lily isn't connected to the warehouse by blood.”
Damon's eyes narrowed.
“Then why is she being watched?”
“Because someone believes she knows something.”
“What?”
Thomas shook his head.
“I don't know.”
That answer frustrated Damon.
But Thomas continued.
“Nadia found something twenty years ago.”
“What?”
“A ledger.”
Damon remembered the hidden room.
The shell companies.
The notes.
The photographs.
“Where is it?”
“That's what everyone wants.”
“Who?”
Thomas looked directly at him.
“Your fiancée's father.”
Damon's expression became unreadable.
Thomas explained that Sofia's father had once represented several of the men who benefited from the old Kane network.
He had spent years trying to locate the ledger.
Not because he wanted to expose it.
Because he wanted to destroy it.
“And Sofia?”
“She doesn't know.”
Damon stared at him.
“You're certain?”
“No.”
That uncertainty mattered.
Damon returned inside.
Sofia was waiting in the main hall.
She had arrived without him noticing.
Her coat was draped over one arm.
Her face was pale.
“You didn't answer when I called.”
Damon stared at her.
“You shouldn't be here.”
She looked past him.
“Who was that man?”
Damon said nothing.
Sofia's eyes narrowed.
“You're investigating my father.”
“I haven't said that.”
“You didn't need to.”
She placed her purse on the table.
“I know what you're looking for.”
Damon's expression changed.
“The ledger.”
Silence.
Sofia closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
Damon stepped closer.
“How much do you know?”
“Enough to know that my father has been afraid of your family for years.”
“Why?”
“Because he believes your father destroyed his career.”
Damon almost laughed.
“My father?”
“He represented men connected to the warehouse.”
“Did he know about the fire?”
“I don't know.”
“Did he know about Elias?”
“I don't know.”
“Then what do you know?”
Sofia looked at him.
“I know my father has one thing your family has been searching for.”
Damon's voice dropped.
“What?”
She reached into her purse.
A small velvet box appeared.
She opened it.
Inside was an old silver bracelet.
Damon recognized the black rose symbol.
His father's ring had carried the same mark.
Sofia whispered,
“My father told me never to let a Kane see this.”
Damon stared at it.
“Why did you bring it here?”
Sofia's eyes filled with tears.
“Because I was going to give it to you tonight.”
“Why?”
“Because I was going to tell you the truth.”
Damon waited.
Sofia swallowed.
“My father isn't the one who has been watching you.”
“Then who is?”
She looked toward the staircase.
“I don't know.”
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
Damon turned.
Nadia stood there holding Lily.
Behind her was Thomas.
And in Thomas's hand was a second photograph.
He looked at Damon.
“The person watching you isn't looking for the ledger.”
Damon stared.
Thomas slowly raised the photograph.
“They're looking for Lily.”
Lily woke.
She looked at the photograph.
Then pointed.
“That man.”
Everyone froze.
Damon looked down.
The photograph showed a younger Vincent Kane standing beside another man.
Lily's little finger remained on the second man.
“I know him.”
Damon's heart stopped.
“From where?”
Lily looked confused.
“From Mommy's picture.”
Nadia covered her mouth.
Damon turned toward her.
“What picture?”
Nadia whispered,
“The one I hid from you.”
And then she said the name.
May you like
“Lily's father.”
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