Chapter 6 - THE TRUTH NADIA HID FOR THREE YEARS
The room seemed to shrink around them.
Damon looked at Nadia.
“Say it again.”
Nadia held Lily tighter.
“Her father is alive.”
Sofia stared at her.
Thomas closed his eyes.
Victor slowly stepped forward.
“Who?”
Nadia looked at Damon.
“His name is Adrian Price.”
Damon frowned.
The name meant nothing.
Then Sofia spoke.
“My father knows that name.”
Everyone turned toward her.
Sofia's face had gone pale.
“My father used to represent a man named Adrian Price.”
Damon looked at Nadia.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because I was afraid.”
“Of Adrian?”
“No.”
She looked at Thomas.
“Of what would happen if you found out he was alive.”
Damon's voice softened slightly.
“Tell me everything.”
Nadia sat down.
Three years earlier, she had been working for a private cleaning company.
She had met Adrian in a hospital.
He had been recovering from an injury.
They fell in love.
They married quietly.
When Nadia became pregnant, Adrian disappeared.
She later learned he had been hiding from men connected to the old Kane network.
She gave birth to Lily alone.
For three years, she had raised her daughter while working wherever she could.
Then Adrian returned.
Not to take Lily.
To warn Nadia.
Someone was searching for a child connected to the old warehouse.
He told her to keep Lily's identity private.
Nadia had obeyed.
Damon listened carefully.
“Why work here?”
Nadia looked at him.
“Because Adrian said the safest place was where powerful people believed they knew everything.”
Damon understood.
The Kane estate.
No one would search for a maid's daughter in the home of the man everyone feared.
It was the perfect hiding place.
Except someone had discovered them.
“Who found out?”
“I don't know.”
Damon looked at the notebook.
“Someone knows Lily is important.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Nadia shook her head.
“I don't know.”
Thomas interrupted.
“I do.”
Everyone turned.
Thomas said quietly,
“Adrian was one of the people your father helped escape.”
Damon stared.
“So?”
“Adrian saw something the night of the warehouse fire.”
“What?”
“Who started it.”
Silence.
Thomas continued.
“He was a teenager then. He was hiding in the warehouse because Vincent was moving his family that night.”
Damon's eyes narrowed.
“Adrian saw the person who started the fire?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Thomas looked toward Sofia.
Her face went white.
“No.”
Damon noticed.
“Sofia?”
She shook her head.
“My father never told me.”
Thomas looked at her.
“He may not have needed to.”
Damon stepped closer.
“What does your father have to do with this?”
Sofia's eyes filled with tears.
“My father represented the company that owned the warehouse.”
Damon stared.
“The company wasn't yours.”
“No.”
“Then whose?”
Sofia swallowed.
“Blackthorn Industries.”
Victor's expression changed.
He knew the name.
Damon did too.
Blackthorn had disappeared years ago after a federal investigation.
But its assets had been scattered among shell companies.
Some of those companies appeared in the notebook.
Morrow Holdings.
Blackfin Consulting.
Alder Street Capital.
North Mercy Logistics.
Damon understood.
The four companies weren't Kane shell companies.
They were remnants of Blackthorn.
Someone had been rebuilding the network.
Inside his estate.
Victor looked sick.
“Your father didn't destroy the network,” Damon said to Sofia.
“No.”
“He inherited part of it.”
Sofia nodded.
“My father wanted to expose it.”
“Then why hide the bracelet?”
“Because he believed the bracelet was evidence.”
Damon picked it up.
The black rose symbol.
Inside the bracelet was a tiny compartment.
Thomas noticed it.
“Open it.”
Damon found the latch.
A narrow strip of paper slid out.
One line.
THE PERSON WHO SAVED THE CHILD NEVER KNEW HE HAD.
Damon looked at Nadia.
“What does that mean?”
She shook her head.
“I don't know.”
Thomas suddenly understood.
“Wait.”
He took the paper.
His eyes widened.
“This isn't about Lily.”
Damon frowned.
“Then who?”
Thomas looked toward the photograph of Vincent.
“Your father.”
Damon said nothing.
Thomas explained.
On the night of the warehouse fire, Vincent had believed every child had been evacuated.
He didn't know one infant had been left behind.
Someone had carried that child out before the building collapsed.
Someone who disappeared afterward.
That child had grown up under another name.
The bracelet had been passed through that family.
Damon stared at the paper.
“So the child wasn't Lily.”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Thomas looked at Nadia.
Nadia's eyes filled with tears.
“The child was me.”
Damon stared.
“What?”
Nadia nodded.
“When I was a baby, my mother was one of the women your father helped escape.”
Damon struggled to follow.
“Nadia, you were there.”
“As an adult.”
“But the warehouse fire was twenty years ago.”
“I know.”
Thomas shook his head.
“She was born after the fire.”
Damon stared at them.
The story was becoming something else entirely.
Nadia's mother had escaped.
Nadia had later learned about the Kane network.
Her son Elias had died in the warehouse fire.
And Adrian had witnessed the person who started it.
But why would anyone believe Lily was connected?
Because Nadia had inherited something.
A memory.
A bracelet.
A family secret.
Damon looked at Lily.
The toddler was playing quietly with her stuffed rabbit.
She looked completely unaware of the danger surrounding her.
Damon knelt.
“Lily.”
She looked up.
“Yes?”
“Where did you see the man in the photograph?”
She pointed toward the hallway.
“He came here.”
Damon's blood ran cold.
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
Nadia stared at her daughter.
“Lily, sweetheart, you didn't tell me.”
“I forgot.”
Damon looked toward the guards.
“Yesterday?”
Lily nodded.
“He gave me candy.”
Damon's face changed.
“What kind?”
Lily thought.
“Red one.”
Nadia covered her mouth.
Damon stood.
“Where?”
Lily pointed toward the west corridor.
The hidden room.
Someone had been inside yesterday.
Not tonight.
Yesterday.
And Lily had seen him.
Damon turned toward Victor.
“Lock down the estate.”
Victor nodded.
Then Sofia spoke.
“Damon.”
He turned.
She held up the bracelet.
“There is another compartment.”
Damon walked toward her.
She pressed the inner clasp.
A tiny metal plate opened.
Inside was a miniature photograph.
Damon took it.
It showed a woman holding a baby.
Behind them stood Vincent Kane.
And beside him—
A younger Adrian Price.
Damon stared.
At the bottom of the photograph was a handwritten date.
The day before the warehouse fire.
On the back were five words.
ASK VINCENT WHO THE WOMAN WAS.
Damon's heart sank.
His father was dead.
The woman was unknown.
Adrian was alive.
And somewhere in the Kane estate was a person who had been watching them for months.
Then Victor's phone vibrated.
He looked at the screen.
His face changed.
Damon noticed.
“What?”
Victor slowly lifted his eyes.
“The estate cameras just recorded someone leaving the west wing.”
“Who?”
Victor turned the screen toward him.
The image was grainy.
But the face was visible.
Damon stared.
It was Sofia's father.
May you like
And he was carrying Lily's stuffed rabbit.
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