Chapter 10: The Night He Lied to Me

The gunshot shattered the darkness.

Someone screamed. Shoes scraped against marble, and a heavy object crashed to the floor. I couldn't see anything, but I could hear Damien shouting orders somewhere to my right.

Then a hand closed around my arm.

“Serena, move!”

I recognised Damien's voice, but I pulled away instinctively.

“Don't touch me!”

“Are you insane? Someone is shooting at us!”

Another gunshot rang out.

He grabbed my hand again and pulled me behind the stone pillar beside the entrance. I stumbled against him, my heart pounding so violently that I could barely hear anything else.

“Stay down,” he ordered.

This time, I didn't argue.

A few seconds later, emergency lights flickered on. Their dim red glow revealed two guards crouching near the doorway. One held his shoulder, while another scanned the room with his weapon raised.

Adrian was nowhere to be seen.

Neither was the person who had whispered my name.

Damien released my hand and turned toward his men.

“Secure the perimeter. Nobody leaves until we've checked every vehicle.”

One of the guards hurried away.

I rose slowly, looking around the mausoleum.

“Where's Adrian?”

Damien scanned the room.

“He was standing beside the tomb.”

“He could be injured.”

“Or he could have run.”

I stared at him. “You think your own friend arranged this?”

“I think someone knew exactly where we'd be tonight.”

His eyes moved toward the open coffin.

“And they knew what we were about to discover.”

I followed his gaze.

The coffin remained open, its dark interior empty. A few minutes earlier, it had been evidence that Alexander Cross might still be alive.

Now it felt like a warning.

Someone had wanted us to come here.

Someone had wanted us to see that empty coffin.

And someone had wanted me to hear those words.

Don't trust your husband.

I turned toward Damien.

“Did you know Isabella was alive when you married me?”

His expression tightened.

“Not when I proposed the arrangement.”

“But you saw her three years ago.”

“Yes.”

“And you never told me.”

“I was going to.”

“When? After our first anniversary? After I stopped asking questions?”

“Serena—”

“You don't get to use my name as if that fixes everything.”

He fell silent.

I had never seen Damien look so uncertain. Usually, he had an answer for everything, even when that answer was a threat. Now he seemed to be choosing between several truths, none of which would make me trust him.

“Tell me exactly what happened that night,” I demanded.

He looked toward his guards.

“Not here.”

“Then where?”

“Somewhere we can speak without being overheard.”

I laughed bitterly.

“You mean somewhere you can control the conversation?”

His eyes hardened, but he didn't raise his voice.

“No. Somewhere I can finally tell you the truth without someone trying to kill us in the middle of it.”

For a moment, I wanted to refuse.

Then I remembered the gunshot, the empty coffin, and the photograph of Isabella.

I needed answers more than I needed another argument.

“Fine,” I said. “But if you lie to me again, there will be no second chance.”

He nodded.

“I understand.”

I wasn't sure he did.

---

We returned to the Cross estate shortly before midnight.

The guards searched the vehicles before allowing us through the gates. Damien ordered additional security around the mansion, then took me to his private study.

He closed the door.

I remained standing.

“Start talking.”

Damien removed his jacket and placed it over the back of a chair. For several seconds, he stared at the desk as though the words were written somewhere on its surface.

“Three years ago, my father called me to his study shortly before midnight,” he began. “He told me he had discovered a betrayal within the family. He wouldn't tell me who was responsible, only that I needed to trust nobody until he had proof.”

“What happened next?”

“He received a phone call. Afterward, he told me to wait in the study while he went to meet someone.”

“Who?”

“He didn't say.”

I folded my arms.

“And Isabella?”

Damien looked at me.

“About twenty minutes later, she appeared at the side entrance. She was frightened and had blood on her sleeve. She asked me whether my father was still alive.”

My stomach tightened.

“What did you tell her?”

“That I didn't know where he was.”

“Did she explain why she was there?”

“She said she needed to warn him. She told me that if he went to the meeting, he wouldn't come back.”

I stared at him.

“And you let her leave?”

“I tried to stop her. She refused to tell me where she was going.”

“Did you follow her?”

“Yes.”

The admission came quietly.

I felt something inside me twist.

“Where did she go?”

“To an old warehouse near the river. I saw her enter, but before I could follow, two men approached me. They claimed my father had been attacked.”

“Were they your father's men?”

“I believed they were.”

“And when you returned to the warehouse?”

“It was empty.”

I shook my head.

“You expect me to believe you spent three years searching for her after that?”

“I did search for her.”

“Then why didn't you tell me you had seen her?”

“Because I found something else that night.”

He opened a drawer and removed a folded sheet of paper.

It was a photograph, faded at the edges.

My father stood beside Alexander Cross outside a building I didn't recognise. Between them stood a young woman whose face had been partly obscured.

Isabella.

On the back, someone had written a date.

The same night Alexander died.

“What is this?” I whispered.

“A photograph recovered from the warehouse. It was left inside an envelope addressed to my father.”

I looked up.

“Why didn't you show me this earlier?”

“Because I didn't know whether the photograph was genuine. The woman could have been someone who looked like Isabella.”

“You knew it was her.”

“I suspected it.”

“And you kept it from me.”

“Yes.”

The word landed between us.

I had expected another excuse, another attempt to make his decision sound reasonable.

Instead, he stood there and accepted the accusation.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because I believed your father was involved in my father's death. I thought Isabella might have helped him.”

I stared at him in disbelief.

“So you decided I didn't deserve to know that my sister might have been alive?”

“No. I decided that if I told you before I understood what had happened, you might confront your father and put yourself in danger.”

“You don't get to make that decision for me!”

“I know.”

His voice was quiet.

“I know that now.”

I looked away before he could see how badly his admission had shaken me.

For three years, I had imagined the moment I would finally discover what happened to Isabella. I had imagined finding her, holding her, and asking why she had left.

I had never imagined standing in a stranger's study, learning that my husband had possessed a piece of the truth all along.

“Is there anything else?” I asked.

Damien hesitated.

My heart sank.

“Of course there is.”

He reached into another drawer and removed a small black notebook.

“I found this among my father's belongings after his death. Most of the pages were blank, but I discovered writing beneath the last page. It had been pressed into the paper by a pen.”

He handed it to me.

I tilted the page toward the desk lamp.

The faint indentations formed a sentence.

If Serena Vale ever marries my son, the arrangement has succeeded.

My blood ran cold.

Below it were three initials.

R. V.

Richard Vale.

My father.

I read the sentence again.

Then I looked at Damien.

“Your father knew I would marry you.”

“He suspected it might happen.”

“And he wrote that the arrangement would succeed.”

Damien nodded slowly.

“I believe he knew something about the marriage before Gabriel ever approached me.”

I lowered the notebook.

“Then this isn't just about Isabella.”

“No.”

“It's about why our families were brought together.”

“Yes.”

“And you still don't know who planned it?”

“Not yet.”

I stared at the initials on the page.

My father had arranged my marriage. Alexander had anticipated it. Gabriel had delivered the proposal. Someone had altered the contract to name Isabella as a beneficiary.

Every road led to another secret.

Then I noticed something written along the edge of the paper, so faint I almost missed it.

A date.

Three months after Alexander Cross's supposed death.

Beneath it were four words.

The king must remain dead.

I looked up slowly.

Damien had gone pale.

He knew something about those words.

“Tell me what that means,” I said.

He took the notebook from me and examined the writing.

“I've seen that phrase before.”

“Where?”

“In a letter my father sent me two days before he died.”

“You said he was dead when he sent it.”

“I received the letter two days before the funeral. It was delivered after his body was supposedly recovered.”

My mind raced.

“If he was already dead, how did he send it?”

“That's what I've been trying to understand.”

A knock sounded at the study door.

One of Damien's men entered without waiting for permission.

“Sir, we've located Adrian's vehicle.”

“Where?”

“Abandoned near the eastern road. No sign of him.”

Damien's expression hardened.

“Anything else?”

The guard hesitated.

“We found a phone inside the car. It's been wiped, but one message remains on the screen.”

He held out a photograph of the phone.

The message contained a single sentence.

Tell Damien the girl in the warehouse wasn't Isabella.

I read it twice.

Then I looked at Damien.

His face had become completely still.

“What girl?” I whispered.

He didn't answer.

“Damien, what girl?”

He closed his eyes briefly.

When he opened them, I saw something in his expression that frightened me more than his anger ever had.

Regret.

“Three years ago,” he said, “I followed Isabella into that warehouse.”

He paused.

“The woman I saw inside was wearing your sister's clothes, carrying her bracelet, and calling herself Isabella Vale.”

My throat tightened.

“But?”

Damien looked directly at me.

“After she disappeared, I found out the woman in the warehouse had been using a false identity.”

I could barely breathe.

“Who was she?”

He shook his head.

“I never discovered her real name.”

I stepped away from him.

For three years, I had searched for a missing sister.

Now I didn't even know whether the woman Damien had followed was her.

My phone vibrated.

An unknown number.

A message appeared.

Your husband is telling the truth about one thing.

Another message followed.

The woman in the warehouse wasn't Isabella.

I stared at the screen.

Then the final message arrived.

Because Isabella was standing beside you when you entered the Cross mansion three years ago.

My heart stopped.

I looked up at Damien.

He was staring at my phone.

Neither of us spoke.

Because if that message was true, then my sister hadn't simply disappeared after Alexander Cross died.

She had entered the Cross mansion.

She had been close enough for me to see her.

And somehow, I had forgotten.

End of Chapter 10