Chapter 16: The page he Burned

“Damien, what did you do with the first page?”

He stood motionless beside the desk.

For several seconds, the only sound in the study was the ticking clock above the fireplace.

Then he closed the black envelope and placed it inside the safe.

“I destroyed it.”

The words struck me harder than I expected.

“You destroyed evidence about my birth?”

“I destroyed a page that could have put you in danger.”

“You don't get to decide what information I'm allowed to have!”

“I know.”

“Then why did you do it?”

He turned toward me. “Because the page contained a name.”

“Whose name?”

He looked at Gabriel.

My husband's lawyer immediately understood the silent instruction.

“Perhaps I should give you both some privacy.”

“Don't move,” I said.

Gabriel stopped.

“If we're discussing my life, nobody leaves until I understand what's happening.”

Damien's expression darkened, but he didn't contradict me.

I stepped closer to him.

“Whose name was on that page?”

“Your biological father's.”

My mouth went dry.

“And you burned it?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because whoever was named there had been declared dead for years. If the information became public, it would have started a war between three families instead of two.”

I stared at him.

“That's your explanation?”

“It's the truth.”

“No. It's a convenient piece of the truth. You keep deciding which secrets are dangerous enough to hide from me, and every time you do, you make my life more dangerous.”

He accepted the accusation without defending himself.

That almost made me angrier.

“Did you know Alexander was involved in my birth?”

“I suspected it after reading his letter.”

“And Isabella?”

“I suspected she was connected to the inheritance.”

“But you didn't tell me.”

“No.”

I stepped away from him.

“I'm done, Damien.”

His face tightened.

“With this marriage? With the investigation? With me?”

“With being the only person in this room who doesn't know what's happening.”

I turned toward Gabriel.

“Arrange my departure.”

Damien moved before the lawyer could answer.

“Serena, you can leave whenever you want. I'm not going to stop you.”

I paused.

For the first time, he wasn't ordering me to stay or warning me about the consequences.

He was giving me a choice.

It should have made things easier.

Instead, it made me realize how much I had wanted him to trust me enough to offer that choice from the beginning.

“I don't need your permission,” I said quietly.

“I know.”

I walked out of the study.

This time, he let me go.

---

I found Nadia waiting in the guest room an hour later.

She had arrived with a laptop, two takeaway coffees, and the expression she usually wore when she had uncovered something unpleasant.

“You look like you've been arguing with a brick wall,” she said.

“A brick wall would have told me less.”

She handed me a coffee.

“Good. I brought caffeine.”

I sat beside her and explained everything: the photograph of the newborns, the altered register, Isabella's possible identity as a Cross, and Damien's admission that he had destroyed the first page.

Nadia listened without interrupting.

When I finished, she opened her laptop.

“Let's separate what we know from what people want us to believe.”

“Go on.”

“Fact one: your father signed Isabella's death certificate while evidence suggests she was alive. Fact two: Alexander arranged for the birth records to be altered. Fact three: somebody wants you and Damien at an auction tomorrow night.”

“And fact four?”

“Your husband has a habit of destroying documents before you can read them.”

I gave her a tired look.

“I'm trying not to defend him.”

“Good. Don't. Trust is something he has to earn.”

She turned the laptop toward me.

“I searched the reference number from the Saint Aurelia records. It appears in an old financial report connected to a company called Northbridge Holdings.”

“Who owns it?”

“That's the interesting part. The company was dissolved twelve years ago, but its final assets were transferred to a private trust.”

“Whose trust?”

Nadia enlarged a scanned document.

“Alexander Cross established it. Richard Vale was listed as a secondary trustee.”

I leaned closer.

“Why would my father manage an asset belonging to Alexander?”

“Maybe they weren't enemies when the trust was created.”

I remembered the old photograph of Richard, Alexander, and my mother.

Perhaps the feud had been a performance.

Or perhaps the friendship had ended for a reason more terrible than murder.

Nadia clicked another file.

“There's something else. Northbridge Holdings made regular payments to Saint Aurelia for almost three years after Alexander's supposed death.”

“Who authorized them?”

“An account registered to a person identified only as the beneficiary.”

“Can you find the name?”

“Not yet. The records are sealed.”

I stared at the screen.

Three years of payments.

Someone had been financing Isabella's care, her movements, or her disappearance long after the world believed her dead.

“Could the beneficiary be Isabella?”

“Possibly. But there's no proof.”

My phone vibrated.

A message from an unknown number.

Your friend is looking in the wrong place.

Another arrived immediately.

Ask her what she found in the clinic's basement.

I looked at Nadia.

Her expression changed.

“What?” I asked.

She closed the laptop.

“Nothing.”

“Nadia.”

She sighed.

“I found a reference to a storage room beneath Saint Aurelia. The public records don't list it, but a maintenance invoice mentions a second archive.”

“And you didn't tell me?”

“I was verifying it first.”

I laughed bitterly.

“Apparently, everyone in my life has decided that keeping secrets is a form of protection.”

“Serena, I wasn't trying to deceive you.”

“Then show me what you found.”

Nadia hesitated before reopening the laptop.

A photograph appeared on the screen. It showed a narrow metal door behind a set of shelves in the clinic's basement.

Beside it was a handwritten label.

ARCHIVE B — RESTRICTED ACCESS.

Underneath the photograph was a list of names.

Most were unreadable.

One wasn't.

ISABELLA CROSS — ACTIVE FILE.

My heart began to pound.

“Where did you get this?”

“An old employee sent it to me anonymously. The file was supposedly removed from the archive after the clinic closed.”

“Supposedly?”

“I haven't found evidence that the archive was ever officially emptied.”

I stood up.

“We're going there.”

“Tonight?”

“Now.”

Nadia closed her laptop.

“There's something you should know first.”

I stopped.

“What?”

“The employee who sent me that photograph disappeared yesterday.”

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

Then I reached for my coat.

“Let's go.”

---

Saint Aurelia stood at the end of a narrow road surrounded by overgrown trees.

The building had been abandoned, but the security lights still worked. Someone had recently cleared the path to the side entrance.

Nadia noticed it too.

“Either the groundskeeper is very dedicated,” she whispered, “or someone doesn't want this place forgotten.”

We entered through a broken service door.

The corridor smelled of damp plaster and old disinfectant. Our footsteps echoed as we made our way toward the basement.

I kept thinking about Isabella.

Had she been frightened when she was brought here? Had she called for me? Had she believed I had abandoned her?

At the bottom of the stairs, we found the metal door from Nadia's photograph.

The lock had already been broken.

Inside, filing cabinets lined the walls. Several stood open, their drawers empty. Others contained bundles of papers tied with faded string.

Nadia switched on her flashlight.

“Help me find the active files.”

We searched for nearly twenty minutes.

Then I found a cabinet marked with the Cross family crest.

Inside was a single folder.

ISABELLA CROSS — TRANSFER RECORDS.

My fingers trembled as I opened it.

The first document listed Isabella's admission to Saint Aurelia.

The second recorded a transfer to a private residence.

The third was a handwritten instruction signed by Alexander.

Keep her identity concealed. She must not be reunited with Serena until the inheritance is secure.

I read the sentence twice.

“Until the inheritance is secure,” I whispered.

Nadia examined the paper.

“Maybe the inheritance wasn't money.”

Before I could respond, we heard footsteps above us.

Someone had entered the building.

Nadia switched off her flashlight.

A man's voice carried down the corridor.

“Check the basement. The folder should still be there.”

My blood ran cold.

The door behind us creaked.

Nadia grabbed my arm and pulled me behind a row of cabinets.

Two men descended the stairs.

One carried a flashlight. The other held a phone.

“It's missing,” the first man said.

“Then she found it.”

“Which one?”

“The Vale girl.”

The second man paused.

“Do we tell the boss?”

“No. He said to bring her in alive if we found her.”

I covered my mouth.

Nadia's fingers tightened around my wrist.

The men moved deeper into the archive.

We slipped through a narrow side doorway and hurried up a second staircase that led to the rear courtyard.

Cold air hit my face as we emerged outside.

We didn't stop running until we reached the car.

Nadia locked the doors and started the engine.

“Tell me you have the folder,” she said.

I looked down.

I was still holding it.

Then I noticed a folded sheet tucked into the back pocket.

Unlike the other documents, it bore no official seal.

Only a handwritten message.

Serena,

If you've found this, Alexander failed to keep us apart. I'm sorry for what I did. I thought protecting you meant making you hate me.

The signature was unmistakable.

Isabella.

Beneath it was a final sentence.

Don't go to the auction tomorrow. Damien isn't the only person who knows what happened to our father.

I looked at Nadia.

“Our father?”

She stared at the note.

“Serena, if Isabella wrote this, she may have known something about your biological father that the others didn't.”

My phone began to ring.

Damien's name appeared on the screen.

I answered.

“Where are you?” he demanded.

“Why?”

“Because someone has just broken into the mansion and stolen the remaining documents from my father's safe.”

I looked at Isabella's note.

“What documents?”

There was a pause.

Then Damien spoke in a voice I had never heard before.

“The original will.”

“And what did it say?”

His answer came quietly.

“Alexander left his entire empire to Isabella.”

I closed my eyes.

For three years, everyone had believed Damien Cross was the rightful heir.

But if Isabella was alive, the empire might never have belonged to him at all.

And suddenly, the auction invitation made perfect sense.

Someone wasn't trying to reveal the past.

They were preparing to decide who would own the future.

End of Chapter 16