CHAPTER 13 : The Daughter He Chose

Because Isabella was never supposed to be the daughter who survived.

I read the message three times.

Each time, the words became more difficult to understand.

My father had lied about Isabella's death. Someone had hidden evidence inside the Cross mansion. A recording suggested that my father and Alexander had discussed keeping one of two daughters.

And now someone was telling me that Isabella was never meant to survive.

“What does it mean?” I whispered.

Damien took his phone back. His expression was unreadable, but the muscle in his jaw had begun to twitch.

“It means someone wants you to believe your father chose between you and your sister.”

“Someone who knows what happened that night.”

“Possibly.”

“Or someone who was there.”

He looked toward the open doorway.

I followed his gaze. Two guards remained in the corridor, their expressions carefully neutral. One of them was the man who had reported finding the recorder.

“Did you know my father before the night Alexander died?” I asked.

Damien looked at me again. “Yes.”

“How well?”

“Well enough to know he was capable of terrible things.”

The answer sent a chill through me.

“You're talking about my father.”

“I'm talking about a man who signed his own daughter's death certificate while she was still alive.”

I flinched.

Damien noticed, and something in his expression softened. He didn't apologize for the words, but he lowered his voice.

“Serena, I won't pretend Richard is innocent just because he's your father. But I also won't pretend I know everything he did.”

For once, I believed him.

That frightened me more than his lies.

I slipped the brass key into my pocket.

“We're going to my father's study.”

“Not yet.”

I turned on him. “You can't keep deciding when I get answers.”

“And you can't walk into a house where your father may have hidden evidence without knowing whether it's safe.”

“It's my house.”

“Your father disappeared. His security system was tampered with. Someone has been inside the Cross mansion searching for a letter you found. Do you honestly believe your house is safer?”

I hated that he made sense.

“Then we go together,” I said. “But you don't touch anything without telling me what you're doing.”

Damien held my gaze.

“Agreed.”

---

We arrived at the Vale residence shortly after noon.

The house looked exactly as I remembered it, which somehow made everything worse. The white pillars, the trimmed hedges, the fountain my mother had once insisted was too extravagant—all of it stood untouched, as though the last three years had been an ordinary passage of time.

But the front door had been replaced.

I noticed the new lock immediately.

“Someone changed it,” I said.

Damien signaled to his men to remain outside. Then he examined the frame.

“Recently.”

“Can you open it?”

He gave me a sideways glance. “You do realize that asking a man like me to break into a house isn't the most reassuring way to start a marriage?”

“I'm beginning to understand why people dislike you.”

“Only beginning?”

Despite myself, I nearly smiled.

He produced a key from his coat and unlocked the door.

Inside, the house smelled faintly of polish and stale air. The curtains were drawn, and a thin layer of dust covered the console table.

No sign of a struggle.

No sign of my father.

I headed straight for his study.

The room was exactly as I remembered it: dark wooden shelves, a heavy desk, framed photographs, and the enormous cabinet that had fascinated me as a child.

I had once asked my father what he kept inside it.

He had looked at me with such coldness that I had never asked again.

Now I stood before it with Isabella's key in my hand.

Damien remained near the door.

“Do you want me to open it?” he asked.

“No. I need to do this myself.”

The key slid into the lock.

For one terrible second, it wouldn't turn.

Then something clicked.

The cabinet opened.

Inside were no business documents, no stacks of money, and no weapons.

There were photographs.

Dozens of them.

Some showed my father standing beside Alexander Cross. Others showed a younger Adrian Cole entering a hospital. Several were dated three years ago.

And in almost every photograph, there was a woman.

My sister.

I picked up the first picture. Isabella stood outside a building I didn't recognize, wearing a dark coat and looking directly at the camera.

The second showed her entering a black car.

The third made my stomach twist.

Isabella was standing beside my father, but she wasn't looking at him. She was looking toward someone outside the frame.

On the back, a date had been written in red ink.

Two days before her official death.

“She was alive,” I whispered.

Damien came closer, careful not to touch the photographs.

“Yes.”

“Not six months after she disappeared. Not just once. My father was seeing her two days before he signed her death certificate.”

I searched the cabinet more urgently.

At the back lay a brown envelope bearing my name.

My hands went cold.

Inside was a single sheet of paper, folded twice.

Serena,

If you're reading this, then the arrangement has failed, and someone has finally shown you the evidence.

There are things I did to protect this family that you may never forgive. I accept that.

But you must understand one thing: I did not choose Isabella over you.

I chose you because Isabella asked me to.

I stopped reading.

The room seemed to tilt.

“That's impossible,” I whispered.

Damien stood beside me. “What is it?”

I handed him the letter.

He read it without speaking.

At the bottom, my father had written one final sentence.

Ask Alexander's son what happened to the second key.

I looked down at the brass key in my palm.

“Second key?” I asked.

Damien's face had gone pale.

“You know what he's talking about,” I said.

He didn't answer.

“Damien.”

He turned away, dragging a hand over his face.

“Three years ago, my father gave me a key. He told me never to use it unless someone came looking for Isabella.”

“Where is it?”

“Gone.”

“When?”

“The morning after his funeral.”

“Who took it?”

“I don't know.”

I stared at him, my anger returning in a rush.

“You knew there was another key, and you never mentioned it?”

“I didn't know yours existed. I didn't know it was connected to my father's.”

“You could have told me.”

“Yes,” he said quietly. “I could have.”

His admission caught me off guard.

No excuse. No threat. No attempt to turn the blame on me.

Just a truth he should have given me sooner.

I looked back at the photographs.

“Isabella asked him to choose me,” I said. “But choose me for what?”

A sound came from the hallway.

A floorboard creaked.

Damien moved immediately, placing himself between me and the doorway.

“Stay behind me.”

This time, I didn't argue.

A shadow crossed the frosted glass.

Then the door swung open.

A man stood in the doorway, breathing hard. He wore a dark jacket and held a small envelope.

One of Damien's men appeared behind him, weapon raised.

“Sir, we found him at the rear entrance.”

The stranger ignored the guard.

His eyes settled on me.

“Serena Vale?”

“Who are you?”

He looked from me to Damien, then swallowed.

“My name is Thomas Reed. I worked for your father.”

“Where is he?”

“I don't know where Richard is now. But he paid me to keep something safe until you opened that cabinet.”

He held out the envelope.

I took it.

Inside was a photograph of two newborn babies in hospital blankets.

One had a tiny bracelet around her wrist.

The other had a crescent moon drawn on the corner of her blanket.

On the back, in my father's handwriting, were four words.

Only one is biologically his.

I looked up, unable to speak.

Damien stared at the photograph.

Then he whispered the sentence that changed everything.

“Serena… that's my father holding you.”