Chapter 2 - The Person Who Knew Too Much
Damien moved before the elevator doors opened.
He pulled Erin behind the marble reception wall and drew the pistol from beneath his jacket.
“Stay down.”
“Who is it?”
“I don't know.”
“That isn't reassuring.”
“It wasn't supposed to be.”
The elevator doors opened.
No one stepped out.
Damien waited.
Three seconds.
Five.
Ten.
Rain tapped against the windows behind them.
The elevator remained empty.
Damien approached slowly.
Erin whispered his name.
He ignored her.
Inside the elevator sat a single white paper cup.
Coffee.
Erin stared at it.
Her breath caught.
Damien didn't touch it.
He looked at the security camera above the elevator.
Its indicator light was dark.
Disabled.
Then the elevator doors began closing.
Damien jammed his shoe between them.
“Roman.”
He called his security chief.
“I'm watching the lobby cameras,” Roman said. “Nobody entered.”
“The executive elevator just came up.”
Silence.
“That's impossible.”
“Apparently not.”
Roman swore softly.
Damien looked at the coffee cup.
“Send two men to forty-two.”
“On the way.”
“And nobody touches the elevator.”
“What are we looking for?”
“Poison.”
Roman stopped asking questions.
Erin stepped closer when Damien returned to the reception area.
Her arms were folded around herself.
“You need to leave,” Damien said.
“So do you.”
“You're going somewhere secure.”
“My apartment?”
“No.”
“Where?”
“My house.”
She immediately shook her head.
“Absolutely not.”
“Erin.”
“Your house is the first place anyone would look.”
Damien almost smiled despite the situation.
“Anyone stupid enough to enter my house won't leave it.”
“That does not make me feel better.”
“It wasn't designed to.”
She stared at him.
Three years working for Damien had taught Erin something few people understood.
His arrogance was sometimes theater.
His confidence wasn't.
If Damien said a place was secure, it probably was.
But she also knew whoever was targeting her had reached into Atlantic Harbor's executive floor.
The Cross headquarters.
If that person could do this here, where couldn't they go?
Roman arrived with two security men.
The coffee cup was bagged.
The elevator was shut down.
Within twenty minutes, the executive floor became an investigation site.
Damien refused to wait.
He drove Erin to Massachusetts General himself.
Not in the sedan.
Not with his regular driver.
They left through an underground loading entrance in a maintenance SUV registered to a shell company.
At 2:11 a.m., Dr. Alan Whitfield walked into a private examination room looking like a man who had been dragged from sleep and immediately regretted complaining about it.
He was in his late fifties, silver-haired, calm-eyed, and one of the few doctors in Boston whose discretion Damien trusted.
Whitfield looked at Damien.
Then Erin.
Then Damien again.
“I assume,” the doctor said, “we are no longer pretending Mr. Cross is simply your employer.”
Erin closed her eyes.
Damien's jaw shifted.
Whitfield sighed.
“Good. That saves time.”
He examined Erin.
Blood pressure.
Reflexes.
Blood samples.
Fetal heartbeat.
When the room filled with the rapid rhythm of the baby's heart, Damien stopped breathing.
Erin noticed.
He stood beside the monitor as though someone had placed a bomb in front of him.
Whitfield watched him carefully.
“That's your child.”
Damien swallowed.
“I know.”
The doctor nodded.
“For now, the fetal heartbeat is strong.”
“For now?”
Erin looked down.
Whitfield removed his glasses.
“The levels we found are concerning. Chronic thallium exposure can damage the nervous system, kidneys, liver. Arsenic adds additional risk.”
“Can you fix it?” Damien asked.
“We can treat Erin.”
“That wasn't my question.”
Whitfield's gaze hardened.
“I know.”
Silence filled the room.
Then he continued.
“The baby is alive. Development appears within normal range based on the scans we've done. But there are no guarantees.”
Damien turned toward the window.
Erin watched his shoulders rise once with a slow breath.
“What happens now?” she asked.
“Chelation therapy. Monitoring. Nutrition. Frequent testing.”
“And the baby?”
“We watch.”
Damien looked back.
“How often?”
“Constantly, if necessary.”
“Then do it.”
Whitfield almost laughed.
“This isn't one of your companies, Mr. Cross.”
“No.”
Damien stepped closer.
“It's more important.”
The doctor understood.
Erin did too.
By dawn, she had been admitted under an alias.
Damien rented an entire private section of the hospital floor.
Three armed security men guarded the elevator.
No food entered without testing.
No drink entered without being opened in front of Erin.
Damien replaced two nurses after learning one had posted publicly about treating a “high-profile patient,” even though she hadn't named anyone.
By 8:00 a.m., Erin had had enough.
“You can't turn a hospital into a bunker.”
“I just did.”
“Damien.”
“You're alive.”
“Barely.”
“Exactly.”
She looked away.
He sat beside her bed.
For twenty minutes, neither spoke.
Then Damien placed the ultrasound on the table between them.
“Boy or girl?”
Erin's expression softened despite herself.
“Too early when that was taken.”
“You don't know?”
“No.”
“Do you want to?”
She glanced at him.
“I hadn't decided.”
“We can decide.”
The word we hung between them.
Erin's eyes lowered.
“Don't do that.”
“Do what?”
“Start imagining something you may not have.”
Damien's face changed.
She immediately regretted saying it.
But she continued.
“I've spent the last twenty-four hours reading everything that could happen.”
“Stop reading.”
“I can't.”
“Yes, you can.”
“You can't order fear away.”
Damien leaned forward.
“No. But I can make sure you're not afraid alone.”
That silenced her.
For three years, Erin had heard Damien threaten men without raising his voice.
She had seen him negotiate deals while people twice his age sweated through their shirts.
She had watched him remain calm after bullets shattered the windows of his car.
She had never heard him say anything so vulnerable.
She looked at him.
“Why didn't you ever marry?”
His eyes narrowed.
“Unexpected question.”
“Answer it.”
Damien considered.
“My father married twice.”
“I know.”
“He treated both women like possessions.”
“I know that too.”
“I decided I wasn't going to become him.”
“So you avoided relationships.”
“I avoided people I could hurt.”
Erin's expression became almost sad.
“That sounds noble when you say it like that.”
“It wasn't.”
“No?”
“No. It was cowardice.”
She blinked.
Damien Cross admitting fear was like watching granite confess it could crack.
Before she could answer, Roman entered.
His expression was grim.
“We got the preliminary analysis on the coffee.”
Damien stood.
“Well?”
“Thallium.”
Erin closed her eyes.
Roman continued.
“High concentration. Enough that if she drank the whole thing, we'd be having a different conversation.”
Damien's face became unreadable.
“Where did it come from?”
“The cup is from the café in the lobby.”
“Who bought it?”
“Security footage was wiped.”
“Backup?”
“Wiped too.”
Damien stared at him.
“That system is isolated.”
“Yes.”
“Meaning?”
“Someone had administrator access.”
Erin sat upright.
“How many people have that?”
Roman looked at Damien.
“Five.”
“Names,” Damien said.
Roman handed him a sheet.
Damien read.
Roman Velez.
Damien Cross.
Miles Brennan, chief technology officer.
Victor Hale, chief financial officer.
And Noah Cross.
Damien stopped at the last name.
Erin noticed.
“Your brother?”
Half brother.
Noah was twenty-nine.
Charming.
Restless.
Educated at Wharton.
Damien's father's youngest child.
Unlike Damien, Noah had never wanted the dirty side of the family empire.
At least that was what he claimed.
He handled real estate investments from New York and rarely visited Boston.
Erin frowned.
“Was Noah even here?”
Roman hesitated.
“According to building records, he entered three nights ago.”
Damien looked up sharply.
“For what?”
“No meeting listed.”
“Call him.”
“I did.”
“And?”
“No answer.”
Damien's phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
He answered.
No voice.
Only breathing.
Then a distorted recording.
A man's voice.
“You should have fired her when you had the chance.”
The line disconnected.
Roman cursed.
Erin went pale.
Damien stared at the phone.
“Trace it.”
“Already trying.”
Another message appeared immediately.
A photograph.
Taken through the hospital room window from an adjacent building.
Damien standing beside Erin's bed.
The caption read:
YOU CAN'T GUARD HER FOREVER.
Damien turned toward the window.
Across the street, hundreds of dark windows stared back.
Roman pulled the curtains.
“We need to move her.”
“Where?” Erin asked.
Damien looked at Roman.
“North house.”
Roman's eyebrows lifted.
“Boss—”
“Now.”
Erin sensed the hesitation.
“What is North House?”
Damien picked up her coat.
“A place almost nobody knows exists.”
“Almost?”
“One person outside my security circle knows.”
“Who?”
Damien met her eyes.
“Noah.”
Erin's stomach tightened.
Within forty minutes they were leaving through a secured underground ambulance bay.
The convoy consisted of three identical SUVs taking separate routes.
Erin rode beside Damien.
Neither spoke for several miles.
Then her phone buzzed.
Damien immediately looked at it.
She opened the message.
Her face changed.
“What?”
She handed him the screen.
A photo had arrived from an unknown number.
It showed a nursery.
Beautiful.
White walls.
A wooden crib.
A mobile of stars and moons hanging overhead.
On the wall, painted in elegant letters:
WELCOME, BABY CROSS.
Beneath the photograph was a second line.
YOUR FATHER BUILT THIS ROOM BEFORE YOU WERE BORN.
Damien stared at it.
His blood went cold.
“My father?”
Erin whispered.
“You said he died eight years ago.”
“He did.”
“Then what does this mean?”
Damien enlarged the photograph.
Something was visible beside the crib.
A framed family portrait.
His father.
Damien.
Noah.
And a woman Damien hadn't seen since childhood.
His father's second wife.
Noah's mother.
Claire.
But someone had drawn a red circle around Noah's face.
And beneath it, handwritten in black ink, were three words.
THE WRONG SON.
Damien's expression changed.
Erin felt it.
“What?”
He looked at her.
“My father left something behind.”
“What?”
“A secret.”
“And you think this is connected?”
Damien stared again at the words.
THE WRONG SON.
“Yes.”
“Connected to what?”
He lowered the phone.
“To who was supposed to inherit everything.”
The SUV continued north through the rain.
May you like
Neither of them noticed the motorcycle that followed them for the next six miles.
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