Chapter 3: The Room That Should Have Stayed Locked

Damien Cross never ran.

He walked through his mansion with the kind of controlled fury that made grown men lower their eyes and move out of his way. His security team followed close behind, their hands resting near their weapons, while I struggled to keep up in the heels I had chosen for a woman who was supposed to be attending a perfectly ordinary dinner.

Nothing about this night was ordinary.

Someone had entered the west wing.

The same west wing Damien had forbidden me to enter.

The same west wing that apparently held a secret connected to my missing sister.

And I was beginning to suspect that my marriage had placed me inside a trap whose walls were closing in.

“Stay behind me,” Damien ordered without looking back.

I almost laughed.

“You're confusing me with someone who takes orders from you.”

He stopped so abruptly that I nearly collided with him.

His dark eyes settled on mine. “Serena, someone has broken into a restricted part of my home. I don't know who it is or what they're looking for.”

“Then perhaps you should ask yourself why they came here.”

His expression hardened.

“Do you always have to challenge everything I say?”

“Only when you're clearly hiding something.”

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

Then he leaned closer, lowering his voice.

“Whatever happens in that room, you do not touch anything. You do not wander off. And if I tell you to leave, you leave.”

I held his gaze. “And if I find something about Isabella?”

Something flickered across his face.

Fear.

It disappeared so quickly that I might have imagined it, but I knew what I had seen.

“Then,” he said quietly, “you let me see it first.”

Before I could answer, he turned and continued down the corridor.

The west wing looked different from the rest of the mansion. The lights were dimmer, the walls covered in old portraits, and a thin layer of dust lay across furniture no one seemed to use.

At the far end stood a black wooden door.

Two guards were stationed beside it.

One of them immediately straightened when Damien approached.

“Sir, the lock was forced. We found the corridor empty, but the room has been disturbed.”

“Disturbed how?”

“The desk drawers were open. Papers were scattered everywhere. Whoever entered knew where to look.”

Damien's jaw tightened.

“Did they take anything?”

“We're still checking.”

Damien reached for the handle.

For the first time since I had met him, he hesitated.

It was barely a second, but it told me more than his words ever had.

He was afraid of what waited on the other side.

The door opened with a low creak.

The room smelled of dust, old paper, and something faintly metallic. A large desk stood near the window. Bookshelves lined the walls, and several framed photographs had been turned face down.

One photograph lay broken on the floor.

I stepped closer before remembering Damien's warning.

The man in the photograph was older, broad-shouldered, and smiling beside a younger Damien.

Alexander Cross.

His father.

But it wasn't the dead man's face that caught my attention.

It was the woman standing beside him.

My mother.

I stopped breathing for a moment.

She looked younger in the picture, her dark hair falling over one shoulder, one hand resting on Alexander's arm as if they had known each other for years.

Why had my mother been photographed with Damien's father?

And why had nobody ever mentioned it?

“Who is she?” I asked.

Damien turned.

His eyes followed mine to the photograph.

For a moment, his expression became unreadable.

“Where did you find that?”

“It was on the floor.”

He crossed the room and picked it up, studying it as if the image had suddenly become dangerous.

“Answer me, Damien. Why is my mother standing beside your father?”

“Because they knew each other.”

“That isn't an answer.”

“It's the only one you're getting right now.”

Anger rose in my chest. “You brought me into this house, showed me a picture of my missing sister, and now I'm finding photographs of my mother in your father's private room. How much more are you planning to keep from me?”

He looked at me for a long moment.

“More than you can imagine.”

The honesty of that answer frightened me more than another lie would have.

Behind him, one of the guards cleared his throat.

“Sir, we found something.”

He held up a small envelope recovered from beneath the desk.

Damien took it, but before he could open it, I noticed the handwriting on the front.

My sister's handwriting.

I knew the shape of every letter. Isabella had written my name on birthday cards, school notes, and the little messages she used to leave beside my breakfast when she knew I was upset.

There was no mistaking it.

The envelope was addressed to Alexander Cross.

“Give it to me,” I whispered.

Damien didn't move.

“Please.”

Perhaps it was the look on my face. Perhaps he finally understood that this was no longer just another piece of evidence to me.

He handed it over.

My fingers trembled as I opened the envelope. Inside was a single sheet of paper, folded twice.

There were only three lines.

If anything happens to me, don't trust Richard.

The truth about Alexander's death is not what they told you.

And whatever you do, keep Serena away from Damien.

I read the last line again.

Then a third time.

My father.

Alexander's death.

Damien.

And my sister, warning someone to keep me away from the man I had just married.

“What does it mean?” Damien asked.

I lifted my eyes to his.

“You tell me. This was addressed to your father.”

“I've never seen it before.”

“Convenient.”

His expression darkened. “You think I planted this?”

“I think everyone in this house knows something I don't.”

I turned toward the door, needing air, distance, anything that would help me think.

Then I noticed something else.

The envelope had a date written inside the flap.

Three years ago.

The very night Alexander Cross died.

My phone vibrated in my pocket.

An unknown number.

One message appeared on the screen.

You found the letter. Good. Now ask Damien what happened at midnight.

Before I could read it again, another message arrived.

Because your sister wasn't the only Vale in that room.

My blood ran cold.

I slowly raised my head.

Damien was watching me.

And judging by the expression on his face, he already knew that something had changed.

“What did you receive?” he asked.

I closed my hand around the phone.

For the first time since this nightmare began, I understood something terrifying.

The person who had sent the message knew exactly where I was.

And they knew exactly what I had found.

“No one,” I lied.

Damien's eyes narrowed.

He knew I was lying.

But before he could challenge me, a gunshot cracked somewhere downstairs.

The guards rushed toward the corridor.

Damien grabbed my wrist—not roughly, but firmly enough to stop me from moving toward the door.

“Stay here.”

Then he pulled a gun from beneath his jacket and disappeared into the darkness.

I stood alone in the room with my sister's letter trembling in my hand.

A second later, my phone vibrated again.

This time, the message contained only six words.

Ask your father who pulled the trigger.