Chapter 8 - THE CHILD WITH TWO NAMESGabriel survived the gunshot.
Damon kept him in the basement beneath Kalas House, where Dr. Shaw treated his wound and Nico stood guard outside the door.
I watched the interrogation from the library through a security feed.
Gabriel was strapped to a chair. Damon stood in front of him, silent and merciless.
“You said the child has an inheritance,” Damon began. “Prove it.”
Gabriel laughed weakly. “Call Benjamin Hart.”
“The banker?”
“The only man Eli trusted with money.”
Damon picked up the phone.
Benjamin Hart answered on the second ring.
His voice shook when Damon said my name.
“Mr. Kalas, I was instructed never to discuss the account unless Mrs. Voss—”
“She is my wife now.”
There was a pause.
“Then you need to understand what your brother created.”
The banker explained that six months before Eli’s death, he had opened a private trust using a series of offshore transfers and a sealed letter. The trust was registered under a child not yet born.
The child’s legal name was Elias Adrian Kalas.
I gripped the edge of the desk.
“Elias,” I whispered.
Damon looked at the screen. “Why that name?”
Benjamin answered, “Because Eli believed the family had abandoned one son and murdered another. He wanted the child to carry both names.”
The trust contained enough money to buy half of Boston.
But the money was not the most important part.
Attached to the trust were digital copies of the original port records, payment schedules, photographs, and audio files connecting Marcel Marquetti to crimes that reached into city government.
“The trust activates when the child is born,” Benjamin said.
“And until then?” Damon asked.
“The mother controls the account.”
I felt Damon’s gaze on me.
“Not Damon?” I asked.
“No. Mr. Voss named you specifically.”
The room seemed to shrink.
Eli had known I would be hunted. He had known Damon might become my protector. He had built a legal trap that placed the evidence in my hands.
Not because he believed I was helpless.
Because he believed I would survive.
The basement door opened. Damon entered with Nico.
“Gabriel says Marcel has a buyer,” Damon told me.
“For the ledger?”
“For the child.”
I went cold.
Nico placed a folder on the desk. “A private adoption broker in New Hampshire received three million dollars to create a false birth record. The plan was to declare the baby stillborn and move him across the border.”
My hand went to my stomach.
“They were going to steal my son.”
“They will still try,” Damon said.
“Then we leave.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere.”
“You cannot outrun an organization that owns half the officials on the coast.”
“Then we fight.”
“That is what I’m doing.”
“No. You’re hiding me in a house surrounded by men with guns and calling it protection.”
His eyes hardened. “You think I don’t know the difference?”
“I think you’re afraid.”
The room went still.
Nico looked away.
Damon stepped closer. “Of what?”
“Of losing another person you love.”
The words came out before I could stop them.
Something passed between us.
He did not deny it.
Instead, he said, “I am afraid that if I let you out of my sight, I will find you the way I found Eli.”
My anger loosened.
“You found him?”
“I was the one who identified his body.”
I had imagined Damon grieving. I had never imagined the details.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you looked at me as if I had killed him.”
“You had spent three years telling everyone he betrayed you.”
“Because I wanted to believe he had chosen to leave. It hurt less than believing someone had taken him from me.”
His voice broke on the last word.
I moved before I could think.
My fingers touched his uninjured hand.
He looked down at our hands as if I had given him something dangerous.
“I don’t believe you killed him,” I said.
“You should.”
“Why?”
“Because men like me are always responsible for the blood around us.”
“Eli chose to protect you.”
“And I failed him.”
“Then don’t fail his child.”
Damon’s fingers closed around mine.
The contact was careful, almost reverent.
No one had touched me gently in months. Every hand I remembered belonged to someone taking something—money, obedience, silence.
Damon held my hand like he was asking permission to exist near me.
“I won’t fail him,” he said.
The next morning, we left Kalas House for a medical appointment in a disguised ambulance.
The plan was simple. Dr. Shaw would perform a full scan. We would return before noon. No one outside the family knew the route.
But halfway through the city, the ambulance stopped.
The driver’s voice came through the intercom.
“Traffic.”
Damon reached for his weapon.
“There is no traffic on this road,” he said.
The back doors opened.
Two masked men climbed inside.
The first fired at Damon.
The bullet struck the metal wall beside his head.
The second grabbed me.
He pressed a cloth over my mouth.
Damon lunged, but the driver slammed on the brakes. His body hit the floor. I tried to kick the attacker, but my balance was gone.
The last thing I saw before the drug pulled me under was Damon reaching for me through a cloud of white smoke.
May you like
The last thing I heard was his voice.
“Adriana!”
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