Chapter 5: The Sister Who Was Declared Dead

For several seconds, I couldn't speak.

My sister was dead.

Those three words had haunted our family for three years, yet nobody had ever said them to me directly. My father had always insisted that Isabella was missing. He had hired people to search for her, or at least claimed he had. He had told me to keep hoping whenever I was ready to give up.

Now Damien Cross stood before me, telling me that my sister had been declared dead.

“Explain,” I demanded.

Damien studied my face. “Three years ago, six days after my father's funeral, a death certificate was issued in Isabella Vale's name.”

“No.”

“Serena—”

“No!” My voice cracked. “If she had died, my father would have told me. He wouldn't keep something like that from me.”

Damien said nothing.

His silence hurt more than an argument would have.

I shook my head, struggling to make sense of it. “Was there a body?”

“No.”

I stared at him.

“You're telling me my sister was declared dead without a body?”

“That's correct.”

“And you expect me to believe that?”

“I expect you to understand that someone wanted the world to believe she was dead.”

I backed away from him.

The mansion suddenly felt too large, its polished floors and towering windows nothing more than a beautiful prison. Every person in it seemed to possess a piece of my family's history except me.

“Who signed the certificate?”

“My father's private physician.”

“Where is he now?”

“Dead.”

The answer came too quickly.

I swallowed. “How?”

“His car went off a bridge two years ago.”

“And you never thought that was suspicious?”

“I investigated it. There wasn't enough evidence to prove it was murder.”

I laughed bitterly. “You investigated everyone except the people who might have helped your father hide the truth.”

His eyes narrowed. “Be careful what you accuse me of.”

“Why? Are you afraid I might be right?”

He moved closer, but I refused to step back.

“Listen to me, Serena. I have spent three years trying to discover what happened to my father. Every lead has taken me back to your family, and every time I thought I was close, someone destroyed the evidence. Your sister's disappearance was the first piece of the puzzle.”

“And now you want me to help you solve it?”

“I want us to stop being played against each other.”

I looked at the man I had married less than a week ago.

He was handsome in a way that made people underestimate how dangerous he could be. His calm expression concealed a mind that never stopped calculating, and his wealth gave him the power to make inconvenient problems disappear.

Yet, for the first time, I saw something beneath his arrogance.

Exhaustion.

Perhaps he had been searching for answers for three years, too.

But that didn't make him innocent.

“Show me the death certificate,” I said.

Damien nodded toward the study. “Come with me.”

---

The document was inside a locked cabinet behind his desk.

Damien entered a code, opened the cabinet, and removed a thick folder. He placed it between us.

I found Isabella's name on the second page.

ISABELLA GRACE VALE.

Her date of birth was correct. So was her address.

The recorded date of death was three years earlier.

Six days after Alexander Cross died.

I read the document twice before noticing the signature at the bottom.

Richard Vale.

My father.

The room tilted.

“No,” I whispered.

Damien remained silent.

I traced the signature with my eyes. I had seen my father's handwriting thousands of times. I knew how he formed the letters in his name.

This was his signature.

“He signed it,” I said.

“Yes.”

“My father signed my sister's death certificate.”

“That's what the document says.”

I shoved the folder away.

“Then he's lying to me. He's been lying to me for three years.”

“Possibly.”

I glared at Damien. “Possibly?”

“I won't pretend to know why he signed it. Someone could have forced him. The signature could have been copied. Until we verify the original, we can't be certain.”

I hated that he was making sense.

I hated even more that I needed his help.

My phone vibrated.

A message from Nadia Reyes, my closest friend and the one person outside my family I believed I could trust.

Serena, call me. It's about Isabella. I found something in an old archive. Don't tell anyone yet.

I immediately called her.

She answered on the first ring.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“At home. Listen, I found a newspaper report from three years ago. It mentions Isabella, but the article was removed from the newspaper's website.”

“What did it say?”

“That a woman matching her description was taken to a private clinic the night Alexander Cross died.”

My grip tightened around the phone.

“Which clinic?”

“I'm sending you the address. But there's something else.”

“What?”

Nadia hesitated.

“The article named the person who brought her in.”

I looked at Damien.

He was watching me carefully.

“Who?” I asked.

Nadia lowered her voice.

“Adrian Cole.”

Damien's closest friend.

His most trusted ally.

The man who had stood beside him throughout the feud between our families.

“Are you certain?” I whispered.

“I have a copy of the article. I'll send it to you.”

The call ended.

A moment later, a photograph appeared on my screen. It showed a faded newspaper clipping with a headline about a late-night incident outside a private medical facility.

Beneath it was a short paragraph.

An unidentified woman was admitted under an assumed name shortly before midnight. Sources claim she was accompanied by Adrian Cole, a known associate of the Cross family. Neither the woman nor Cole could be reached for comment.

At the bottom of the clipping was a photograph.

Adrian.

And beside him, her face partially hidden beneath a hood, was a woman wearing a silver bracelet.

I knew that bracelet.

I had given it to Isabella for her twenty-fifth birthday.

My knees nearly buckled.

“She was alive,” I whispered.

Damien took the phone from my hand and studied the image.

His expression changed.

“Where did you get this?”

“From Nadia.”

He enlarged the photograph, then reached for his own phone.

“Call Adrian,” I said.

“I will.”

“Now.”

Damien looked at me. “If this is genuine, we need to know why he kept it secret.”

“Then ask him.”

He dialed.

The call rang once.

Twice.

Three times.

Then a recorded voice announced that the number was unavailable.

Damien tried again.

Nothing.

He lowered the phone slowly.

“That's not like him,” he murmured.

Before I could respond, his private line rang.

He answered without taking his eyes off me.

“Talk.”

A man's voice came through the speaker, strained and hurried.

“Boss, we've got a problem.”

“What is it?”

“Adrian's apartment has been cleared out. His phone is off, his security detail is gone, and there's no sign of him.”

Damien's face became frighteningly still.

“When?”

“Within the last hour.”

“Find him.”

“We're already searching.”

Damien ended the call.

I looked down at the photograph again.

My sister had been alive after the night she disappeared. Adrian had been with her. My father had signed a document declaring her dead.

And now Adrian was gone.

Someone was erasing the past before we could uncover it.

I lifted my eyes to Damien.

“Your friend knows where my sister is.”

Damien's jaw tightened.

“If he does, I'll find out.”

“And if he helped someone hurt her?”

For the first time, Damien didn't answer immediately.

Then he closed the folder containing Isabella's death certificate.

“If Adrian betrayed me,” he said quietly, “I'll make him answer for it.”

I wanted to believe him.

But as I turned toward the door, my phone vibrated again.

Another message from the unknown number.

Stop looking for Isabella.

A second message followed.

The next person declared dead will be you.

I stared at the screen, my hands suddenly cold.

Then a photograph arrived.

It showed the entrance to my father's house.

Taken less than five minutes earlier.

And standing behind the front gate was a man I had believed had been buried three years ago.

Alexander Cross.

End of Chapter 5