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Chapter 6
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2025-10-18 10:59:58I didn’t sleep. Again.
The envelope with its cruel message – 72 HOURS, sat on my nightstand, the black letters practically glowing in the dark. Every time I shut my eyes, I saw it. Three days. A clock ticking louder with every heartbeat.
By morning, my nerves were frayed raw. I dressed on autopilot, grabbed coffee I couldn’t drink, and headed straight to the nonprofit.
Maybe the letter was just intimidation. Maybe Pierce was bluffing, and could still fix things before the deadline strangled me.
That hope died the moment I saw the police cars.
Two squad cars were parked in front of the building, red and blue lights flashing. A small crowd had gathered, murmuring. My heart lurched as I pushed through them.
“What’s going on?” I demanded.
An officer held up a hand. “Ma’am, you can’t go inside right now.”
“This is my office!” I snapped. My voice came out higher than I intended. “What happened?”
The officer glanced at his partner, then sighed. “There was a break-in overnight. Place is trashed.”
The words hit like a gut punch.
I shoved past him before he could stop me. Inside, the sight stole my breath.
Desks overturned. Filing cabinets pried open. Papers scattered like fallen leaves. The wall of children’s drawings I loved so much—defaced. Ripped down, stomped on, smeared with something dark.
And on my desk, in the center of the wreckage, lay another envelope.
My legs nearly gave out.
I staggered forward and tore it open with shaking hands.
Inside: “66 HOURS. YOU’RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME.”
My vision blurred. The police voices behind me faded.
This wasn’t random vandalism. This wasn’t just some junkie looking for cash. This was a message.
Pierce.
He was already shaving hours off the clock.
“Jane?”
I turned. Sophia stood in the doorway, her face pale. I hadn’t even noticed her arrive.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, taking in the chaos. “Who would…” She stopped when she saw the envelope in my hand. “Another one?”
I nodded numbly.
Her eyes hardened. “This is connected, isn’t it? To that man. The one you wouldn’t tell me about.”
I swallowed. “Soph—”
“Don’t ‘Soph’ me. You’re in danger, Jane. This isn’t just about your charity anymore. Whoever this is, they’re targeting you.”
She was right. But admitting it felt like inviting the terror deeper.
“I can handle it,” I lied.
Her glare could’ve cut glass. “No, you can’t. And you don’t have to. Tell Daniel.”
The name made my chest clench. Daniel, who refused to tell me the truth, who carried secrets like weapons, who looked at me with regret but never with answers.
I shook my head. “I can’t.”
Sophia grabbed my arm. “You don’t have a choice. If this Pierce guy is as dangerous as you’re making him sound, then you need help.”
Her grip tightened. “Jane, I don’t want to lose you, too.”
The words cracked something in me. Mom was already gone. Dad was fading. Sophia was all I had left.
But before I could answer, a voice called from the door.
“Well. Isn’t this touching?”
We both spun around.
Daniel stood there, his expression grim as he took in the wreckage. His gaze landed on the envelope in my hand, and his jaw tightened.
“Another one,” he said. Not a question.
I hated that he sounded unsurprised.
I rounded on him. “What does he want from me? Why is he doing this?”
Daniel’s eyes flicked to Sophia, then back to me. “We shouldn’t talk here.”
“No!” My voice rose, breaking. “I’m done with your secrets, Daniel. I deserve to know why this man is tearing my life apart.”
Sophia folded her arms, glaring between us. “Someone better start explaining before I lose my mind.”
Daniel’s jaw flexed. He looked at me with something like apology, then finally spoke.
“Jonathan Pierce isn’t just a businessman. He’s ruthless. He destroys people to get what he wants. And right now… what he wants is me.”
Sophia frowned. “Then why is he going after Jane?”
Daniel’s gaze met mine, and the answer chilled me to the bone.
“Because she’s the only thing that ever mattered to me. And he knows it.”
The words knocked the air from my lungs.
Sophia’s eyes widened. “Wait. What?”
But I couldn’t respond. My mind spun. Pierce wasn’t just targeting me. He was using me as a weapon. To break Daniel.
If Daniel was telling the truth… then Pierce wouldn’t stop until one of us shattered.
The officer interrupted, stepping back inside. “Ma’am, we’ll need you to come down to the station later to file a formal report.”
I nodded numbly.
As he left again, Sophia turned to me, panic sharp in her eyes. “Jane, this is insane. You need to stay with me until this is over.”
Daniel stepped forward. “No. She’ll be safer with me.”
Sophia snapped her head toward him. “Safer with the guy who clearly brought this nightmare into her life? I don’t think so.”
They glared at each other, and I felt like I was being torn in two.
“Soph—” I began.
But Daniel cut me off, his voice low and urgent. “Jane, listen to me. Pierce won’t stop. He’ll escalate. If you don’t let me protect you, he will win.”
Sophia’s hand tightened around mine. “And what if he’s lying? What if he’s part of this?”
Her words hit too close. A part of me wondered the same thing.
The room swam with tension, their voices overlapping, my heart pounding. And then my phone buzzed.
A text. Unknown number.
I opened it. My blood froze.
A picture.
Dad. In his hospital bed.
The photo was timestamped five minutes ago.
Beneath it, a message: “64 HOURS. TICK TOCK.”
My breath caught. It wasn’t just my nonprofit anymore. It wasn’t even about me.
They were watching my father. And now, the countdown had swallowed my family whole.
Último capítulo
The Heart Never Forgets Chapter 58
“This isn’t a threat,” Aaron had said. “It’s an execution.”Those words followed me into the building.They clung to my skin, my breath, and my thoughts as I pushed past the broken entrance and stepped inside.The building smelled like old smoke and wet concrete.That was the first thing that hit me as I stepped inside – not fire, not danger, but memory. Burned paper. Rusted metal. A place that had already died once and refused to stay buried.My pulse thudded in my ears as I moved deeper into the structure, every footstep echoing too loudly. The flashlight in my hand trembled, cutting through dust and shadows. This was the building Pierce was supposed to destroy again.The past, erased twice.I swallowed and checked my phone. No signal. Of course.The investigator had stayed outside, insisting this part was too risky. I hadn’t argued. Some truths felt like they were meant to be faced alone.That was when I saw the gasoline cans.Three of them. Bright red. Carefully lined up near the
The Heart Never Forgets CHAPTER 57
I told my father I would be back.The words tasted hollow as I said them, like a promise made with fingers crossed behind my back. He lay there in the hospital bed, smaller than I remembered, his eyes tired but sharp with fear.He nodded, squeezing my hand as if he wanted to hold me there, to keep me from walking straight into whatever fire Pierce was planning next.“I need to stop him,” I said quietly. My father swallowed. “Be careful, Jane.”I didn’t trust myself to answer, so I just turned and left.The moment the hospital doors slid shut behind me, the weight crashed down again. Pierce is planning another fire. The words replayed in my head, over and over, like a match striking again and again, refusing to go out.I should have gone straight to Daniel.That was the logical choice. He had the resources. The connections. The experience of fighting Pierce and surviving it. And yet, as I stood in the parking lot, keys shaking in my hand, doubt crept in.What if Pierce was right?What
The Heart Never Forgets CHAPTER 56
Daniel frowned slightly. “That was your dad, right? What did he say?”I looked at him, feeling the air shift around us, heavy with the weight of everything unsaid.“He wants to talk,” I whispered. “He says he needs to tell me the truth.”Daniel then nodded. “You should. I’ll go with you.”I shook my head. “No. I need to do this alone.”He opened his mouth to argue, but I lifted a hand, stopping him. My chest tightened as the words pushed out of me, low and shaky.“Daniel… you’re still hiding something from me.”His face fell. “Jane…”“No,” I said softly. “Don’t deny it. I can feel it. And whatever it is… it’s sitting between us like a wall I can’t climb.”He swallowed hard, guilt flickering across his eyes.“This thing with my mother, with Pierce, with
The Heart Never Forgets Chapter 55
The confusion clung to me like fog as Daniel and I stood in the middle of my living room, staring at the sheet of paper lying on my desk – the missing page.The one someone had broken into my home to deliver. A message. A threat. A warning. I didn’t know which.My pulse hammered. Daniel stepped closer, gently touching my arm. “Jane… we should read it.”I wasn’t ready. I was terrified of whatever truth waited on that page. But I nodded, because we had already gone too far to turn back.I picked it up with trembling fingers.My mother’s handwriting, the soft, looping cursive I recognized from childhood notes tucked into lunchboxes and birthday cards, stared back at me.And from the very first sentence, my world cracked open.The missing page explained everything. Everything I was never supposed to know. Everything that destroyed my family long before I understood there was anything to break.I sank onto the sofa as the words burned into me:“If the warehouse ever goes up in flames, it w
The Heart Never Forgets CHAPTER 54
The torn edge of the missing page haunted me through the night.I kept staring at the envelope, at my mother’s handwriting, at the way the letter ended mid-sentence, as if she had been interrupted, as if someone suddenly came into the room, as if she never got the chance to finish.By morning, my head ached from piecing together fragments that made no sense. One thing was clear: the missing page mattered. It wasn’t just lost. Someone took it.Someone who didn’t want me to read it.I grabbed my car keys, determined to confront the only person alive who might know what had been written – my father.I had barely pulled out of my driveway when my phone rang.Daniel.For a moment, my heart stalled. Since his collapse in the interrogation facility, every call from his number made my stomach twist.I answered quickly.“Daniel? Are you okay?”His voice was steadier than before, but still soft. “Jane… I’m out. They cleared me temporarily, said I’m stable enough to go home as long as I check in
The Heart Never Forgets Chapter 53
The envelope sat in my palm like something alive, pulsing with secrets I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. Mrs. Calloway’s words still echoed through my head.“Your father wanted you to have this.”I stood there in her office, unable to speak, unable to even breathe normally. My hands were shaking as I stared at the envelope’s edges, yellowed, soft, and familiar.My mother’s handwriting.I knew it instantly. I’d recognize those looping curves anywhere. She used to write little notes and tuck them in my lunchbox. Have courage, sweetheart. You shine everywhere you go. Never let fear decide your future.I swallowed hard.“My mother wrote this?” My voice cracked.Mrs. Calloway gave a slow nod, her eyes unreadable. “Your father gave it to me years ago. Told me to protect it. Told me to give it to you only… when the past caught up.”“When the past caught up?” I repeated, stunned. “What does that even…”But I stopped myself. I didn’t want another word from her. Not after what she’d confessed. No
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