PART 2.
“I think there's a mistake in that report.”
Melissa sighed.
“You were interviewing for an administrative assistant position.
Our financial reports aren't your concern.”
“The transfer total on page four doesn't match the department breakdown on page five.”
“The difference is $18,200,” I added.
Melissa's expression hardened.
“You may leave now.”
Then a deep male voice came from behind me.
“Actually, I'd like her to stay.”
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Damian Blackwood stood in the doorway with one hand resting casually in the pocket of his charcoal trousers.
He looked perfectly composed, but there was something in his eyes that made Melissa Crane forget how to breathe.
I had seen powerful men before.
My former boss at Mercer Equipment had owned three dealerships and enjoyed reminding everyone that he could replace them by lunchtime.
Bank managers had looked down their noses at my mother when she begged for two extra weeks on the mortgage.
Landlords had spoken loudly when they wanted us to understand how little leverage poor people possessed.
Damian Blackwood was different.
He didn't need to announce that he had power.
The room announced it for him.
Melissa swallowed.
“Mr.
Blackwood, this candidate was just leaving.”
Damian's gaze shifted toward her.
“I heard.”
Two words.
Melissa's mouth closed.
Then he turned to me.
“Show me.”
My pulse thudded in my ears.
I stepped back toward the conference table and pulled the report closer.
The pages were thick, expensive paper, the kind my mother would have saved if she'd found even one unused sheet.
I pointed to the summary.
“Page four says the logistics division transferred $746,300 during the quarter.”
Damian leaned over the table.
He smelled faintly of cedar and cold air.
I continued.
“But if you add the department allocations listed on page five, the total is $728,100.”
His eyes moved quickly across the figures.
“Difference?”
“Eighteen thousand two hundred.”
“I can subtract, Ms.
Collins.”
Heat climbed my face.
“Sorry.”
The corner of his mouth shifted almost imperceptibly.
“Continue.”
I looked closer.
Now that I had permission, the numbers bothered me even more.
There were four transportation vendors listed beneath the transfer allocation.
Three had invoice numbers.
The fourth showed only a handwritten code beside the amount.
K-17.
$18,200.
Except the $18,200 wasn't included in the subtotal.
I pointed again.
“This line.”
Damian straightened.
Melissa rushed forward.
“That is an internal adjustment.
She wouldn't understand the coding system.”
I looked at her.
“Then why does the code appear under vendor payments?”
Melissa's face tightened.
The younger recruiter—whose name tag read Brooke Ellis—suddenly became fascinated by the carpet.
Damian noticed.
He noticed everything.
“Brooke,” he said.
Her head snapped up.
“Yes, Mr.
Blackwood?”
“What is K-17?”
“I—I don't know.”
“Melissa?”
“It could be several things.”
“Name one.”
Silence.
Damian picked up the report.
He didn't raise his voice.
That somehow made everything worse.
“Who prepared this?”
Melissa's lips parted.
“Our accounting department.”
“Which person?”
“I'd have to check.”
“You reviewed it?”
“Of course.”
“And you didn't notice eighteen thousand two hundred dollars disappearing between two consecutive pages?”
Melissa recovered just enough confidence to straighten her shoulders.
“With respect, these reports contain hundreds of transactions.
A small discrepancy—”
“A small discrepancy?”
His voice remained quiet.
Melissa froze.
Damian placed the report gently on the table.
“My father used to say there were two kinds of people who called eighteen thousand dollars small.”
Nobody answered.
He looked directly at Melissa.
“The very rich.”
Then his eyes moved to Brooke.
“And thieves.”
Brooke's face drained of color.
I wished desperately to disappear.
This wasn't my business.
I had entered the building hoping for a job that paid enough to keep the electricity on and maybe buy my little brother a proper winter coat before December.
Instead, I was standing in a room with Chicago's most feared businessman while two recruiters looked as if they might faint.
Damian turned toward me.
“Ms.
Collins, how long did it take you to see this?”
“I don't know.
Maybe fifteen seconds.”
Brooke muttered something under her breath.
Damian's eyes flicked toward her.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
“I heard something.”
She swallowed.
“I said anyone could have noticed it.”
Damian looked at the report.
Then at Brooke.
“You had this document for three days.”
Brooke said nothing.
“Melissa had it for two.”
Again, silence.
He tapped the page once.
“She had it for fifteen seconds.”
I felt strangely embarrassed, as though I had caused the problem simply by seeing it.
Damian seemed to read that thought on my face.
“Don't apologize for being observant.”
“I wasn't going to.”
That wasn't entirely true.
His gaze sharpened.
Then, unexpectedly, he smiled.
It wasn't warm.
But it transformed his face enough to make him look younger.
“Good.”
He pulled out the chair beside him.
“Sit down.”
Melissa stared at him.
“Damian, surely you're not continuing the interview.”
“No.”
My heart sank.
Then he added, “You're not.”
He looked at Melissa and Brooke.
“Both of you.
Out.”
Melissa blinked.
“What?”
“Leave the room.”
“Damian—”
“Now.”
The word was soft.
They moved immediately.
Melissa gathered her tablet with trembling fingers.
Brooke nearly knocked over her chair.
As they reached the door, Damian spoke again.
“Leave your building credentials with security.”
Melissa turned.
Her face had gone from pale to gray.
“You're suspending us?”
“I haven't decided.”
Her eyes widened.
“Over one interview?”
“No.”
Damian lifted the financial report.
“Over your reaction to this.”
Neither woman answered.
They disappeared into the hallway.
The door closed.
And suddenly I was alone with Damian Blackwood.
That realization landed much harder than I expected.
He walked to the glass wall overlooking downtown Chicago.
Thirty-seven floors below us, cars crawled between towers like tiny insects.
The October sky was silver, Lake Michigan barely visible through the haze.
“Coffee?” he asked.
I blinked.
“What?”
“Coffee.”
“No, thank you.”
“Tea?”
“No.”
“Water?”
“I’m fine.”
“You're terrified.”
“I’m fine.”
He turned.
There was amusement in his eyes now.
“You're a poor liar.”
“My résumé didn't list lying as a skill.”
This time he actually laughed.
Only once.
Low and brief.
Then the amusement disappeared.
“Tell me what else you see.”
He placed the report in front of me.
I hesitated.
“Mr.
Blackwood—”
“Damian.”
“I think Mr.
Blackwood is probably safer.”
“Probably.”
Something about the way he said it made me decide not to ask what that meant.
I lowered my eyes to the report.
“If I'm going to review this properly, I need the previous quarter.”
He stared at me for a moment.
Then he crossed to a cabinet, entered a code, and removed a binder.
“Anything else?”
“Vendor ledger.”
Another binder.
“Bank reconciliation?”
His eyebrow lifted.
“You're ambitious for someone who came here interviewing for an assistant position.”
“You asked.”
He placed a third folder beside me.
“Proceed.”
For the next twenty minutes, I forgot who he was.
Numbers had always done that for me.
Numbers didn't sneer at patched sleeves.
They didn't care how much money your father had stolen before disappearing.
They didn't care whether your shoes came from a clearance rack or whether you ate dinner the night before.
Numbers either balanced or they didn't.
And these didn't.
The $18,200 was only the beginning.
K-17 appeared four times in six months.
$7,600.
$12,900.
$18,200.
$9,400.
Each payment appeared under a legitimate vendor category.
None appeared in the corresponding subtotal.
I opened the bank reconciliation.
My stomach tightened.
“There's more.”
Damian had been standing by the window, making no attempt to hurry me.
“How much?”
“Forty-eight thousand one hundred total.”
“Missing?”
“Hidden.”
His expression changed.
One word had mattered.
I continued carefully.
“The money isn't gone from the bank records.
It's being transferred.”
“To where?”
“The account numbers are partially masked.”
“Can you identify the bank?”
“Not from this copy.”
He came around the table.
“What else?”
I flipped through the pages.
Then I saw something strange.
The payment dates.
Every K-17 transaction had occurred on a Friday.
Specifically, the last Friday of each month.
Except one.
The $18,200 payment had been entered on a Tuesday.
Two days ago.
I looked at Damian.
“The latest one broke the pattern.”
He leaned closer.
“Meaning?”
“Someone changed their routine.”
“Why?”
“Maybe they were in a hurry.”
“Or?”
I thought about it.
“Or they knew they were running out of time.”
The room became very quiet.
Damian reached for his phone.
Before he could dial, someone knocked.
A man in his fifties entered without waiting for permission.
He was lean, silver-haired, and impeccably dressed.
“Damian, I've been looking for you.”
His eyes landed on me.
Then the folders.
Something flickered across his face.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
“Who is this?”
“Ms.
Collins.”
“New hire?”
“Candidate.”
The man's smile returned instantly.
“Victor Hale,” he said, extending his hand.
I shook it.
His grip was dry and firm.
“Chief financial officer.”
My stomach tightened.
CFO.
I looked at the report again.
Victor noticed.
“What are you reviewing?”
“Quarterly logistics expenses,” Damian said.
Victor's smile didn't move.
“Why?”
“Ms.
Collins found an irregularity.”
For one brief moment, his eyes met mine.
Something cold passed through them.
“What irregularity?”
“K-17.”
The room changed.
It was subtle.
Victor didn't flinch.
Didn't step backward.
Didn't even blink faster.
But I had spent years watching customers lie about late invoices, business owners lie about cash shortages, and my own father lie when he said he would never abandon us.
Victor Hale became very still.
Too still.
Then he laughed.
“K-17?
That's what this is about?”
Damian watched him.
“You know it?”
“Of course.
It's a temporary allocation code.”
“For what?”
“Unassigned vendor expenses.”
“Which vendor?”
“It varies.”
Damian held his gaze.
Victor's smile weakened.
“I'd have to pull the details.”
“I'd like them.”
“Certainly.”
“Now.”
Victor looked toward me again.
“Perhaps this isn't the best conversation to have in front of an applicant.”
Damian's voice cooled.
“Ms.
Collins is the reason we're having the conversation.”
Victor's jaw tightened.
He walked to the table and picked up the report.
I saw his thumb cover the K-17 line.
“It's a bookkeeping artifact.
Nothing more.”
“Then you won't mind explaining why forty-eight thousand one hundred dollars in K-17 transfers don't appear in the department subtotals.”
This time Victor looked directly at me.
“How did you calculate that?”
I wished I could say I'd guessed.
Instead I answered.
“Six months of reports.”
His expression became unreadable.
“Impressive.”
It didn't sound like a compliment.
Damian rested both hands on the back of a chair.
“Victor.”
“Yes?”
“Bring me the complete K-17 ledger.”
Victor smiled again.
“Of course.”
He left.
The moment the door shut, Damian took out his phone.
“Security.”
He waited.
“Mr.
Hale is leaving the thirty-seventh floor.
Don't stop him.”
I looked up.
Damian continued.
“But don't let him leave the building.”
He ended the call.
“You don't trust him.”
“No.”
“You already suspected him?”
“No.”
That surprised me.
“Then why—”
“Because innocent men argue differently.”
He looked toward the door.
“And Victor just lied twice in less than sixty seconds.”
“How do you know?”
“Because K-17 doesn't exist.”
My blood went cold.
“What?”
“There is no temporary allocation code K-17 in Blackwood Holdings.”
I stared at the paper.
“Then why is it in the report?”
“That is what I intend to discover.”
He walked to a small refrigerator concealed behind the cabinetry and handed me a bottle of water.
This time I took it.
My hands had started shaking again.
“Drink.”
I did.
“Mr.
Blackwood—”
“Damian.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you found it.”
“That doesn't mean I belong in this.”
“No.”
His gaze dropped briefly to my patched sleeve.
“But you walked into a room where people were humiliating you, noticed something everyone else missed, and spoke up anyway.”
He leaned against the table.
“That tells me something.”
“What?”
“That you notice danger before you notice your own discomfort.”
I didn't know how to respond.
He picked up my résumé.
The same résumé Melissa had barely opened.
“You attended Harold Washington College.”
“Yes.”
“Scholarship?”
“Partial.”
“Worked throughout?”
“Yes.”
“Mercer Equipment.”
“Accounts payable.”
“You left four months ago.”
“My mother needed surgery.
I reduced my hours, and my supervisor replaced me.”
“What kind of surgery?”
I stiffened.
“That doesn't seem relevant.”
He looked at me.
Then nodded once.
“Fair.”
For some reason, that single word changed something.
Most people with authority became offended when you denied them personal information.
Damian simply turned the page.
“You kept books for three small businesses afterward.”
“Still do.”
“Why apply here?”
“Health insurance.”
The answer escaped before I could dress it up.
His eyes lifted.
I almost laughed at myself.
“You wanted honesty.”
“I didn't say I did.”
“You seem like the kind of man who would notice a lie.”
“I would.”
“Then health insurance.”
He studied me.
“And money?”
“Obviously money.”
“How much?”
I frowned.
“For the job?”
“For your life.”
I stared at him.
“I don't understand.”
“How much would materially change things?”
The question irritated me.
Maybe because wealthy people sometimes asked questions like that as though poverty were a math puzzle.
“Twenty thousand dollars would change almost anyone's life.”
“Yours?”
“Sure.”
“Ten?”
“Yes.”
“Five?”
“Yes.”
“One?”
I looked at him.
“One thousand dollars would mean my mother doesn't choose between the electric bill and her prescriptions this month.”
His expression went still.
Immediately I regretted saying it.
I stood.
“I should go.”
“Why?”
“Because this is becoming personal.”
“You made it personal when you applied for a job.”
“No.
I applied to work.”
“And employment affects your life.”
“That doesn't give you ownership of it.”
For the first time, I thought I saw genuine surprise in Damian Blackwood's face.
Then something else.
Approval.
“You're hired.”
I froze.
“What?”
“Financial compliance assistant.
Temporary probation period of ninety days.”
I stared at him.
“I didn't apply for that position.”
“It didn't exist this morning.”
“You can't create a job because I found one discrepancy.”
“I own the company.”
“That doesn't make it sensible.”
His mouth twitched.
“Most people don't criticize the employment offer while receiving it.”
“Most people probably think you're going to have them thrown into Lake Michigan.”
That smile appeared again.
“You believed that rumor?”
“There are several rumors.”
“Most are exaggerated.”
“Which ones?”
“I'll let you wonder.”
Before I could answer, the conference room door opened.
A security officer entered.
“Mr.
Blackwood.”
Damian's expression hardened immediately.
“What?”
“Mr.
Hale attempted to leave through the west garage.”
My stomach dropped.
“Attempted?”
Damian repeated.
“We stopped him.”
“Where is he?”
“Executive security office.”
“Was he carrying anything?”
“A laptop.
Two phones.
And this.”
The guard handed Damian a small envelope.
Inside was a flash drive.
Victor had apparently tried to hide it in his coat lining.
Damian turned it over between his fingers.
“Interesting.”
The security officer hesitated.
“There's something else.”
“Say it.”
“Mr.
Hale wasn't alone.”
Damian's face darkened.
“Who?”
The guard glanced at me.
“Melissa Crane.”
My breath caught.
Melissa.
The recruiter.
The woman who had mocked my clothes and tried so desperately to throw me out of the building.
Damian looked toward the closed door.
“Where is she?”
“She locked herself in the second-floor restroom.
Security has her outside.”
“Bring them both to conference room twelve.”
The guard nodded and left.
I looked at Damian.
“Melissa was involved.”
“Possibly.”
“She tried to get rid of me because I saw the report.”
“Maybe.”
“No.”
The certainty in my own voice surprised both of us.
I pointed toward the scattered pages.
“She was trying to get rid of me before I saw the report.”
Damian stopped.
I continued.
“But after I mentioned the discrepancy, she changed.”
“How?”
“She wasn't embarrassed anymore.”
I replayed the moment.
Her face.
Her voice.
Her eyes.
“She was scared.”
Damian stared at me.
“Of you?”
“No.”
I looked toward the door Victor had used.
“Of whoever would find out that I'd noticed.”
Damian's expression became unreadable.
Then his phone rang.
He answered.
“Blackwood.”
He listened.
His eyes narrowed.
“When?”
Another pause.
“Seal the floor.”
He hung up.
“What happened?”
I asked.
“The accounting server was accessed remotely three minutes ago.”
“By Victor?”
“He was already detained.”
“Melissa?”
“Her phone is with security.”
I felt a chill move through me.
“Then there's someone else.”
Damian nodded.
“And they know we're looking.”
He gathered the K-17 reports.
“You're leaving.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“Security will take you home.”
“No.”
His eyes narrowed slightly.
“That wasn't a suggestion.”
“I thought you hired me.”
“I did.”
“Then don't send me away the moment this becomes difficult.”
His jaw tightened.
“This isn't difficult.”
“What is it?”
“Potentially dangerous.”
A silence passed between us.
I glanced down at my patched blazer.
Less than an hour earlier, my greatest fear had been leaving this building unemployed.
Now men were trying to flee with hidden flash drives.
Someone was accessing servers remotely.
And Damian Blackwood—who supposedly feared nobody in Chicago—looked worried enough to send me home under guard.
I should have accepted.
Instead I said, “I want to see the flash drive.”
“No.”
“You hired me for financial compliance.”
“Five minutes ago.”
“Still counts.”
“This isn't a debate.”
“Then fire me.”
His eyes went cold.
I waited.
For a moment, I wondered whether I had finally pushed too far.
Then he gave a short, humorless laugh.
“You're either very brave or catastrophically bad at reading danger.”
“Those aren't mutually exclusive.”
Damian stared at me.
Then he took the flash drive from his pocket.
“Fine.”
We moved to a smaller office with no windows.
Damian didn't insert the drive directly into the company network.
Instead, an IT security specialist brought in an isolated laptop and opened the contents.
There were fourteen encrypted folders.
Thirteen required passwords.
One did not.
The folder was labeled simply:
AC.
The technician opened it.
My heart stopped.
Inside were photographs.
Of me.
Leaving my apartment.
Entering a grocery store.
Walking beside my mother.
Standing at a bus stop.
The oldest image was dated three weeks earlier.
My mouth went dry.
“That can't be right.”
Damian said nothing.
The technician scrolled.
Another photograph appeared.
My younger brother, Noah, leaving his high school.
My knees weakened.
“What is this?”
Damian caught my arm before I stumbled.
I jerked away almost instantly.
“No.”
“Ava—”
“Why are there pictures of my family on your CFO's flash drive?”
His face had gone dangerously still.
“I don't know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because if I knew, you wouldn't be seeing them.”
I couldn't breathe properly.
The technician opened a text file.
There were dates.
Addresses.
My mother's workplace.
Noah's school schedule.
My former employer.
My college transcript.
Every place I'd worked in the last five years.
Then one line made everything inside me freeze.
Candidate placement confirmed.
Blackwood Holdings interview: October 7, 9:00 a.m.
Recruiter assigned: M.
Crane.
I looked at Damian.
“You didn't find me.”
His face changed.
“What?”
“This interview wasn't random.”
I pointed at the screen.
“Someone wanted me here.”
Damian read the line twice.
Then he slowly turned toward the technician.
“Disconnect everything.”
The technician obeyed.
“Now.”
The laptop went dark.
Damian took out his phone.
“Lock down the building.
Nobody enters or leaves.”
I grabbed his wrist.
“Wait.”
Every instinct told me I shouldn't touch him.
I didn't care.
“What?”
“The report.”
“What about it?”
“The page I noticed.”
I ran back into the conference room.
Damian followed.
I grabbed the quarterly statement and held it beneath the overhead light.
The document had been printed professionally, but suddenly I remembered something.
When Melissa gathered the papers, that one page had slipped sideways.
Almost as if it had been placed differently.
I checked the bottom corner.
Every company report carried a tiny seven-digit print-control number.
Pages one through three ended in 4421.
Page four ended in 4421.
Page five—
My heart pounded.
“This page didn't belong to the report.”
Damian took it.
His eyes hardened.
“Someone inserted it.”
“Someone wanted the discrepancy found.”
“By you.”
I looked at the patched sleeve my mother had sewn the night before.
At the résumé that had somehow made its way onto Melissa Crane's interview schedule.
At the page that had been planted exactly where I could see it.
Then something even worse occurred to me.
“What if Melissa wasn't trying to keep me from discovering it?”
Damian looked at me.
“What if she was supposed to humiliate me?”
His gaze sharpened.
“To make you leave?”
“No.”
I remembered every word.
The insults.
The laughter.
The deliberate cruelty.
Because this isn't a thrift store.
I think we've seen enough.
And then the report slipping sideways.
“She wanted me angry.”
Damian said nothing.
“People pay closer attention when they're angry.”
I touched the fake page.
“What if Melissa was told to provoke me, then make sure I saw this?”
Damian's expression turned grim.
“Then the missing money was bait.”
“For what?”
He looked at the flash drive.
“For me.”
The conference room door suddenly opened.
A different security guard appeared.
His face was tense.
“Mr.
Blackwood, there's a problem.”
“Another one?”
“Victor Hale is gone.”
Damian's eyes became lethal.
“What do you mean gone?”
“The lights failed on the second floor for twenty-two seconds.
When backup power came on, the holding room was empty.”
“Melissa?”
“Still there.”
“Victor?”
“No trace.”
Damian took one step toward him.
“Seal the exits.”
“They're already sealed.”
“Garage?”
“Sealed.”
“Loading docks?”
“Covered.”
“Roof?”
The guard hesitated.
“Checking now.”
My phone vibrated.
All three men looked at me.
I pulled it from my purse.
Unknown number.
There was a message.
Only one sentence.
YOU FOUND IT FASTER THAN YOUR FATHER DID.
For a moment, the entire world disappeared.
My father.
The man who had vanished seven years earlier after stealing everything from our family.
The man whose name I had trained myself not to say.
My fingers shook so violently I nearly dropped the phone.
Damian took it from me.
He read the message.
His face changed.
Not confusion.
Recognition.
I saw it.
“You know something.”
He didn't answer.
“Damian.”
Still nothing.
“You know something about my father.”
His jaw tightened.
“What was his name?”
I stared at him.
“You tell me.”
“Ava.”
“You recognized that message.”
“I recognized the implication.”
“Don't lie to me.”
He went silent.
Then he looked toward the security guard.
“Leave us.”
The guard disappeared.
Damian closed the door.
When he turned back, the distance between us suddenly felt enormous.
“My father maintained private records,” he said.
“What kind of records?”
“People who worked for him.”
“Illegally?”
He didn't answer.
That was answer enough.
I felt sick.
“Was my father one of them?”
“I don't know.”
“You're lying again.”
“I've never heard the name Collins.”
“That wasn't his real name.”
Damian froze.
I had never told anyone outside my family.
Not police.
Not employers.
Not friends.
My mother had made us swear never to repeat it.
I reached into the inner lining of my purse.
There was a photograph I carried even though I hated myself for keeping it.
My father stood beside my mother, younger then, holding a toddler version of me.
On the back was a name.
Daniel Voss.
Damian took the photograph.
All color left his face.
I'd seen Melissa go pale.
I'd seen Brooke tremble.
I'd watched Victor Hale realize he'd been caught.
None of it compared to Damian Blackwood's reaction.
He whispered something I barely heard.
“No.”
My blood turned cold.
“You know him.”
Damian looked at me.
For the first time since I'd met him, Chicago's untouchable mafia boss looked genuinely shaken.
“Ava, your father didn't steal from you and disappear.”
My throat tightened.
“What are you talking about?”
Damian placed the photograph on the table as if it were evidence from a crime scene.
“Daniel Voss worked for my father.”
My ears started ringing.
“Doing what?”
“He found missing money.”
Just like me.
I couldn't speak.
Damian continued.
“Seven years ago, he discovered a theft inside the organization.”
“How much?”
“I don't know.”
“Who was stealing?”
“That information vanished with him.”
My knees weakened.
“You said vanished.”
“Yes.”
“Not ran away.”
“No.”
“Not abandoned us.”
Damian held my gaze.
“No.”
I felt like someone had cut the floor out from under me.
My father hadn't emptied our bank account and escaped.
Or maybe he had.
Maybe both things were true.
“Then where is he?”
Damian's answer came quietly.
“We were told he was dead.”
My entire body went numb.
I shook my head.
“No.”
“Ava—”
“No.”
“The records said—”
“My mother searched hospitals for two years.”
“I know.”
I looked at him sharply.
“You know?”
He realized his mistake instantly.
That one word exposed everything.
“You've seen her records.”
Silence.
“You knew who I was.”
“No.”
“But someone in your family did.”
Damian looked toward the photograph.
Then his expression changed again.
He picked it up and stared at the background.
“What?”
He didn't answer.
“What do you see?”
He turned the photograph toward me.
Behind my parents was a restaurant.
A black awning.
Gold lettering.
I had seen the picture a thousand times and never cared about the background.
Damian did.
“That restaurant belonged to my family.”
I stared at him.
“So?”
“It closed twenty-four years ago.”
“Then that's when the picture was taken.”
“No.”
He pointed to a man standing half-visible behind my father.
A young man in a dark suit.
Even twenty years younger, the resemblance was unmistakable.
Damian's father.
Vincent Blackwood.
My breath disappeared.
“Why was your father with mine?”
“I don't know.”
The lights flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Damian instantly reached inside his jacket.
My stomach tightened when I saw the outline of a gun.
Then every light in the conference room went out.
Total darkness.
A second later, the emergency lights switched on, filling the room with red illumination.
Somewhere in the hallway, an alarm began screaming.
Damian moved in front of me.
“Stay behind me.”
“What is happening?”
“Someone's killing the power.”
The conference room phone rang.
The sound made me jump.
Damian stared at it.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Then he answered.
“Blackwood.”
Silence.
His expression hardened.
He pressed the speaker button.
A distorted male voice filled the room.
“Hello, Damian.”
Damian's hand tightened around the phone.
“Who is this?”
The voice ignored him.
“Is Ava Collins still with you?”
My blood froze.
Damian stepped closer to me.
“What do you want?”
A quiet laugh came through the speaker.
“You always were impatient.”
Damian's eyes narrowed.
“Victor?”
“No.”
The voice changed.
The distortion vanished.
And something inside me stopped.
I knew that voice.
Not because I'd heard it recently.
Because I had spent seven years trying to forget it.
My phone slipped from my fingers.
“No.”
The man on the speaker went silent.
Then he said my name exactly the way he used to when I was a child.
“Ava.”
I couldn't breathe.
Damian stared at me.
I whispered the word I had sworn I would never say again.
“Dad?”
The voice answered softly.
“I'm sorry it took you so long to find me.”
Then the line went dead.
Damian moved toward the conference room door, but before he reached it, the wall-mounted television turned on by itself.
A live security feed appeared.
Underground parking garage.
Level B4.
A lone man stood beneath the flickering fluorescent lights.
Older.
Thinner.
Gray at the temples.
But unmistakable.
Daniel Voss.
My father.
He looked directly into the security camera.
Then raised a white envelope.
Across the front, written in thick black ink, were two words.
FOR AVA.
Damian went completely still.
Because behind my father, stepping slowly out of the shadows, was someone Damian clearly recognized.
Someone whose funeral Chicago had attended four months earlier.
Vincent Blackwood.
Damian's dead father.
…If you want to know what happened next, please type “YES” and like for more.
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Source: Stories of Destiny · Thao Thao
