CHAPTER 14 The Blood That Was Never Mine

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

Damien's words settled over the room like a death sentence.

I stared at the photograph in my hands.

Two newborn babies. Two hospital blankets. One tiny bracelet. And a man whose face I had seen in framed photographs my entire life.

Alexander Cross.

My husband’s father.

The man whose death had supposedly started the war between our families.

“That’s impossible,” I said.

My voice sounded distant, as though someone else had spoken.

Damien reached for the photograph, but I pulled it against my chest.

“Don’t.”

“I need to see it.”

“You’ve seen it.”

“Serena—”

“Did you know?”

The question silenced him.

I searched his face, desperate to find something that would make the photograph meaningless. A flicker of confusion. A hint of disbelief. Anything.

Instead, Damien looked as though the floor beneath him had cracked.

“No,” he said. “I swear to you, I didn't know.”

I wanted to believe him.

That was the problem.

Somewhere along the way, I had begun to recognize the difference between Damien’s anger and his fear. Right now, beneath the controlled expression of the ruthless man everyone feared, I saw fear.

Not for himself.

For me.

I looked at the photograph again.

“Which baby is me?”

Neither Damien nor Thomas Reed answered.

I turned toward the former employee.

“You said my father paid you to keep something safe. You brought us this photograph. You know what it means.”

Thomas swallowed.

“I know what I was told.”

“Then tell me.”

He glanced at Damien.

“Look at me,” I snapped.

His eyes returned to mine.

“Your father hired me to work at the private maternity clinic where your mother delivered,” he said. “There were complications. Two babies were born, but the records were sealed before I could understand what was happening.”

“Two babies?” I repeated.

“Yes.”

“Twins?”

“I was never told.”

I looked at the two blankets. The photograph offered no names, no dates, no explanation.

Only a question that threatened to destroy everything I knew about myself.

“Who was the other baby?”

Thomas hesitated.

“Your sister.”

I gripped the edge of the desk.

“Isabella?”

He nodded.

For a moment, the room became painfully quiet.

Isabella and I had grown up together. We shared a bedroom until we were teenagers, stole our mother's jewelry, argued over clothes, and whispered secrets long after we were supposed to be asleep.

She had been my sister in every way that mattered.

But now a stranger was telling me that our births had been hidden, our records sealed, and our father had kept a photograph that could change our entire family history.

“Why would Alexander Cross be holding me?” I whispered.

Thomas shook his head. “I don't know.”

“Who was my biological father?”

“I don't know that either.”

Damien stepped closer. “What did Richard tell you to do with the envelope?”

Thomas hesitated again.

Damien's voice hardened. “Answer.”

“He said I was to deliver it only after Serena opened the cabinet. He said the photograph would make her ask the right questions.”

“And what questions did he want her to ask?” Damien demanded.

Thomas reached inside his jacket and produced a second sheet of paper.

“This.”

I took it.

The note was short, written in my father's unmistakable handwriting.

Serena,

The man who raised you is not necessarily the man who fathered you. But blood is not the reason you were chosen.

Find the original birth register. Do not trust a copy.

And whatever Damien tells you, remember that Alexander Cross did not die the way the newspapers claimed.

I lowered the paper.

My father had left me another trail, another set of instructions, another reason to doubt the people around me.

I was beginning to wonder whether Richard Vale had ever spoken to me without carefully choosing what I was allowed to know.

“Where is the original register?” I asked Thomas.

“I don't know.”

“Then why bring me this?”

“Because your father said the next person who came looking for the photograph might be the person who had the original.”

Damien’s attention sharpened.

“Who came looking for it?”

Thomas looked at him.

“A woman.”

My heart lurched.

“Describe her.”

“Dark hair. Tall. A scar near her left eyebrow.”

Isabella had a faint scar near her left eyebrow from falling off a bicycle when we were children.

“Was she alone?” I asked.

“Yes. She said her name was Isabella Vale.”

My knees weakened.

“When?”

“Four days ago.”

Four days.

She had been alive, moving through the world, close enough to reach my father's former employee.

And she hadn't come to me.

“What did she want?” I asked.

“The photograph. I refused to hand it over because Richard's instructions were clear. She said that if I gave it to you, you'd finally understand why she had to disappear.”

“Why didn't you contact me?”

“I was afraid.”

“Of my father?”

Thomas looked at Damien.

“Of the Cross family.”

Damien's expression became dangerously still.

“You think I would hurt her?”

“I think your family has spent years making people disappear.”

For a second, I thought Damien would strike him.

Instead, he stepped aside.

“Get out.”

Thomas looked startled.

“Sir?”

“You've delivered what you were asked to deliver. Leave the property. If anyone follows you, contact my security chief.”

Thomas hurried out, escorted by one of Damien’s guards.

The moment the door closed, I turned on my husband.

“Your family has a lot to answer for.”

“So does yours.”

“Don't.”

“Serena, the photograph suggests my father was involved in your birth. Your father left a note saying Alexander didn't die as reported. We can't pretend these things aren't connected.”

“I’m not pretending anything. I’m trying to work out whether my entire life is a lie.”

His expression softened.

“I know.”

“No, you don't. You grew up knowing exactly who your family was. You inherited an empire, a name, a place in the world. I grew up believing I was Richard Vale’s daughter, that Isabella was my sister, and that my mother died without taking any secrets to her grave.”

I looked down at the photograph.

“Now I don't even know what my own blood means.”

Damien was silent for a long moment.

Then he said, “Whatever that register says, it won't change who you are.”

I laughed bitterly.

“That's easy for you to say.”

“Maybe. But I know what it means to discover that the people who raised you have lied to you.”

I studied him.

“Is that what happened with your father?”

He looked away.

Before he could answer, his phone rang.

He listened without speaking. Then his expression changed.

“What hospital?” he asked.

He ended the call.

“What is it?” I demanded.

“The clinic where your mother gave birth was closed twelve years ago. My men found its former records officer.”

“And?”

“He was attacked this morning.”

My blood ran cold.

“Is he alive?”

“Yes. Barely conscious. He asked for you by name.”

I stared at him.

“Why me?”

Damien picked up the photograph and slipped it into the envelope.

“Because he says he remembers which baby Alexander Cross was holding.”

---

The hospital room was guarded by two men in plain clothes.

The records officer lay beneath a white blanket, his face pale and his breathing shallow. A doctor had warned us that he could speak only briefly.

When we approached the bed, his eyes opened.

He looked at me with immediate recognition.

“Serena Vale,” he whispered.

“I'm here.”

His fingers trembled against the sheet.

“Your mother… she made us promise.”

“Promise what?”

“To protect the girls.”

I leaned closer.

“Which girl was Alexander holding?”

His gaze shifted to Damien.

Then back to me.

“Not the one you think.”

A monitor began to beep more rapidly.

The nurse hurried forward, but the old man caught my wrist with surprising strength.

“Listen carefully,” he whispered. “The register was changed after the birth. The original names were crossed out.”

“Who changed them?”

His lips parted.

“Your father.”

My stomach dropped.

“Richard?”

The man shook his head weakly.

“Not Richard.”

His eyes drifted toward Damien.

“Alexander Cross.”

The monitor sounded again.

The nurse pushed us back as the doctor rushed in.

I stood frozen beside the bed, unable to move.

Alexander Cross had apparently held me as a newborn. He had allegedly arranged for the birth records to be altered. My father had hidden photographs, Isabella had disappeared, and Damien had inherited an empire built on secrets.

Then the records officer opened his eyes one last time.

“Miss Vale,” he whispered.

I leaned forward.

He struggled to speak.

“Your sister knows which one of you was supposed to die.”

His hand slipped from mine.

The doctor ordered us out.

I barely heard him.

Outside the room, Damien took my arm, but I pulled away.

“Don't touch me.”

He stopped immediately.

I looked at him, at the man whose family had been connected to my life long before our forced marriage.

“One question,” I said.

“Ask it.”

“If Alexander Cross wasn't my biological father, why did he arrange for my birth records to be changed?”

Damien had no answer.

My phone vibrated.

A message from an unknown number appeared on the screen.

You're asking the wrong question, Serena.

Another message followed.

The original register doesn't reveal who your father is. It reveals why Isabella was allowed to live.

I stared at the words until the screen dimmed.

Then a final message arrived.

And Damien has already seen it.