Chapter 18 - Derek’s BargainI should have felt satisfaction.
I had imagined Derek begging.
Not specifically. Not consciously.
But some wounded part of me wanted him on the floor emotionally, the way he had left me in that hospital hallway.
Yet when he appeared on that screen, terrified and bandaged, I felt no joy.
Only exhaustion.
Cruel men were often cowards under better-dressed circumstances.
“Your father?” I said. “Which one?”
Derek flinched.
Luka’s eyes narrowed.
Derek looked past the camera as if afraid someone would hear.
“Claire, please.”
The word please sounded foreign from him.
“You have no idea what Arthur will do.”
“I know what he already did.”
“You think you do.” Derek’s voice shook. “Arthur doesn’t just destroy enemies. He erases bloodlines.”
Luka stepped closer to the phone.
“Careful.”
Derek laughed bitterly.
“Oh, now you care about truth? Tell her, Moretti. Tell her what happens when a child becomes more valuable than the adults around her.”
Luka said nothing.
I held the phone tighter.
“What do you want, Derek?”
“A deal.”
“No.”
“You haven’t heard it.”
“I don’t need to.”
“I can testify.”
That stopped everyone.
Derek saw it.
His eyes sharpened with desperation.
“I can testify against Arthur, the board, the doctors, the judges. I know where records are kept. I know which accounts funded the placements. I know which children went where.”
Anna stepped forward.
“You know the names?”
Derek blinked, seeing her.
His face went pale.
“M-13,” he whispered.
Anna’s lips curled.
“Surprise. Dead girls grow up.”
Derek looked genuinely shaken.
Good.
“What do you want in exchange?” I asked.
“Protection.”
I almost laughed.
Everyone wanted protection after helping build the fire.
“And?”
Derek looked at Mila, sleeping in my arms.
“No public release of the second report.”
There it was.
Not the crimes.
Not my father’s murder.
Not stolen babies.
His paternity.
His shame.
His place in the Ashford dynasty.
“You want me to hide your secret.”
“I want you to use it strategically.”
“You mean quietly.”
“I mean alive!” he snapped. Then he lowered his voice. “Arthur has men inside federal offices. If you make this public before I give sworn testimony, evidence vanishes and people die.”
Luka looked at me.
I hated that Derek might be telling the truth.
Bad men did not become useless when they got scared.
Sometimes fear made them informative.
“What guarantee do we have?” I asked.
Derek swallowed.
“There’s a ledger.”
Luka went still.
“What ledger?”
“The original placement ledger. M-01 through M-17. Mothers, buyers, doctors, handlers. Arthur kept it as insurance.”
“Where?” Luka demanded.
Derek hesitated.
I moved the phone closer.
“Derek. You walked away from your daughter.”
His face tightened.
“She wasn’t—”
“Finish that sentence and the deal dies.”
He shut his mouth.
I continued.
“You walked away from a newborn you helped target. You tried to have me declared insane. You forged my name. You signed blood extraction papers. So understand this clearly: you do not negotiate like a husband. You confess like a criminal.”
Derek stared at me.
Maybe he finally understood that the woman he married had died in the hospital corridor.
In her place stood Mila’s mother.
And Mila’s mother was done begging.
“The ledger is at Ashford House,” he said. “Not in the office. Not in the safe. In the chapel.”
“The chapel?” I asked.
“My grandfather built a private chapel under the east wing. Arthur hides family sins beneath family prayers.”
Luka’s mouth hardened.
“How do we get in?”
Derek laughed once.
“You don’t.”
I leaned toward the screen.
“Then why tell us?”
May you like
His eyes flicked to mine.
“Because Claire can.”
