Chapter 2 - The Resignation He Refused to Accept
For several seconds, I honestly believed Damon had confused me with someone else.
That explanation was ridiculous.
But it was less ridiculous than what he had just said.
“My mother changed my name?”
“Yes.”
“You’re telling me this now?”
“I only confirmed it last night.”
“You said your father knew eighteen months ago.”
“He suspected.”
I stared at him.
“How?”
Damon’s jaw tightened.
“My father keeps records.”
“On your employees?”
“On anyone close to this family.”
“That’s comforting.”
“Elena.”
“No. Don’t ‘Elena’ me like I’m being unreasonable.”
I walked toward the door.
Damon moved faster.
Not threateningly.
He simply reached the door first and turned the lock.
The click sounded much louder than it should have.
My eyes went to his hand.
Damon immediately stepped away.
“You are free to leave.”
“Then unlock it.”
“I need five minutes.”
“You just told me another powerful family has been looking for me since childhood.”
“And I am trying to explain why.”
“Unlock the door.”
He did.
Instantly.
Then he put several feet between us.
That mattered.
Even furious, I noticed.
“Five minutes,” I said.
Damon nodded.
He went to the desk, opened a drawer and removed a thin folder.
Not the thick black security files his people used.
This one was old.
Brown paper.
Creased corners.
He placed it on the desk.
I did not touch it.
“My mother’s name was Grace Marlowe.”
“Yes.”
“She was a nurse.”
“For most of your life.”
“For all of it.”
“No.”
The single word landed heavily.
Damon opened the folder.
Inside was a photograph.
A younger version of my mother stood beside a man I had never seen.
She looked maybe twenty-three.
Happy.
Her hair was long.
The man beside her had one arm around her waist.
On his hand was a ring bearing a crest.
A lion beneath a crown.
The same symbol I had seen in the boardroom last night.
My stomach twisted.
“That’s Voss.”
“Yes.”
“Who is he?”
“Adrian Voss.”
I looked up.
Camille’s uncle.
I remembered the family chart I had organized months ago for a corporate event.
Adrian Voss.
Deceased.
No spouse.
No children.
At least officially.
“No.”
Damon said nothing.
“No.”
I pushed the photograph away.
“My father was Michael Marlowe.”
“The man who raised you.”
“My father.”
“I am not trying to take that away from you.”
“Then stop.”
I paced toward the window.
My childhood memories came suddenly.
My father teaching me to ride a bicycle.
My father burning pancakes every Sunday.
My father sitting beside my bed whenever thunderstorms frightened me.
Michael Marlowe died when I was sixteen.
Cancer.
I had held his hand in the hospital.
Whatever Damon was suggesting could not erase that.
“He knew?” I asked.
“I believe so.”
“Believe?”
“There are letters.”
Of course there were.
There were always letters in stories where someone’s life turned out to be something else entirely.
I hated that mine had apparently joined the category.
Damon pushed the folder toward me.
“You can read them when you’re ready.”
“I’m not.”
“Then don’t.”
I looked at him.
“What does this have to do with your engagement?”
“Adrian Voss was Viktor’s younger brother. Twenty-seven years ago, Adrian was supposed to marry into another family. Instead, he fell in love with your mother.”
I almost laughed.
The sound came out wrong.
“So this is hereditary?”
Damon’s mouth tightened.
“Apparently.”
“What happened?”
“Adrian tried to leave.”
“And?”
“He died three weeks later.”
The humor disappeared.
“How?”
“Officially? A boating accident.”
“Unofficially?”
“No one agrees.”
I rubbed my arms.
The office suddenly felt cold.
“And my mother?”
“She disappeared from New York. She married Michael Marlowe less than a year later. Your birth certificate lists him as your father.”
“Because he was.”
Damon nodded.
“Yes.”
The immediate agreement disarmed me more than argument would have.
“What does Viktor want with me?”
“That’s what I intend to find out.”
“No.”
Damon frowned.
“You are not going to ‘find out’ anything about my life without me.”
“Elena—”
“I mean it.”
“You should not be in that meeting.”
“I’m going.”
“Viktor Voss is not someone you meet because you want answers.”
“I’ve spent three years scheduling meetings with men like Viktor Voss.”
“Scheduling and sitting across from him are different things.”
“Then it’s fortunate I resigned.”
Damon’s face hardened.
“I haven’t accepted your resignation.”
“That isn’t how resignations work.”
“It is when your contract—”
“Finish that sentence and I’ll walk out right now.”
He stopped.
Good.
I picked up the envelope and tore it open myself.
Damon watched me.
I removed the letter.
Placed it flat on his desk.
“This is not a negotiation.”
He looked down at it.
Then up at me.
“Neither is the fact that I don’t want you to leave.”
There it was again.
Not a confession.
Not exactly.
But close enough to make breathing complicated.
I looked away.
“You cannot make decisions that affect two families because you’re afraid of losing an employee.”
“I already told you. You are not merely an employee.”
“Then what am I?”
Silence.
Damon Russo, who could negotiate eight-figure contracts without looking at notes, suddenly had nothing.
That hurt more than it should have.
I nodded slowly.
“Exactly.”
I turned.
“Elena.”
“I’ll attend the Voss meeting. After that, I’m leaving.”
“You’re not safe alone.”
I spun back.
“Do not use fear to keep me here.”
His face changed immediately.
“I would never.”
“Then stop making decisions for me.”
Another silence.
Then Damon nodded once.
“You’re right.”
The words shocked me.
Damon rarely admitted error quickly.
“I will give you everything I know.”
“Everything?”
“Everything.”
“And I decide what happens next.”
“With your life, yes.”
“With my job too.”
His jaw flexed.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
I reached for the old folder.
Then stopped.
“What time is the meeting?”
“Eleven.”
I looked at the clock.
8:04.
Three hours.
“Where?”
“Here.”
I almost smiled.
“Of course. God forbid Damon Russo travel to another man’s office.”
“Viktor insisted.”
That removed my almost-smile.
“Why?”
Damon’s phone vibrated.
He checked the screen.
Something shifted in his expression.
“What?”
He did not answer immediately.
“Damon.”
He handed me the phone.
A message from an unknown number.
One sentence.
She looks exactly like Adrian.
Attached was a photograph.
Of me.
Taken last night.
Standing beside the boardroom window.
My stomach dropped.
“Who sent this?”
“We’re tracing it.”
“You said Viktor only learned—”
“I didn’t say that.”
My eyes snapped to his.
“You knew he might already know?”
“I suspected.”
“You let me walk home alone last night?”
“You did not walk home alone.”
“What?”
“Security followed you.”
I stared.
“I didn’t authorize that.”
“I did.”
“You had me followed?”
“Protected.”
“Without telling me?”
“Yes.”
I slammed the phone onto the desk.
“You really do not understand boundaries.”
“I understand consequences.”
“Those aren’t the same thing.”
“No,” Damon said. “They aren’t.”
He looked genuinely regretful.
Again, annoying.
“From now on,” he said, “you choose.”
“I choose no security.”
“I strongly recommend otherwise.”
“Recommendation noted.”
“Elena.”
“I choose one person. Someone I know. Daniel from the lobby.”
Damon considered it.
“Daniel is building security.”
“He served eight years in the Marines and you told me once he was the best person in the building during an emergency.”
Damon’s eyebrows lifted slightly.
“You remember everything I say.”
Unfortunately.
“Yes.”
“Fine. Daniel.”
“Good.”
“And I want my mother here.”
Damon went still.
“You want to call her?”
“I’m not hearing the story of my life from Viktor Voss before I hear it from her.”
“Agreed.”
I called Mom.
She answered on the third ring.
“Elena? Is everything okay?”
“Mom.”
My voice broke on one syllable.
I hated that.
There was a pause.
“What happened?”
“I need you to come to Russo Tower.”
Another pause.
Longer.
“Why?”
I looked at the photograph.
At my mother twenty-seven years younger.
At Adrian Voss.
“I think you know.”
Silence.
Then I heard her breathing change.
“Who told you?”
That was all the confirmation I needed.
My knees weakened.
Damon moved instinctively.
He stopped himself before touching me.
I noticed that too.
“Mom,” I whispered. “Is Adrian Voss my biological father?”
She did not answer for five seconds.
Then ten.
Finally:
“Yes.”
My eyes closed.
“I’m coming,” she said quickly. “Do not meet Viktor alone.”
“We have a meeting at eleven.”
“Elena, listen to me.”
For the first time in my life, I heard genuine fear in my mother’s voice.
“Do not believe anything Viktor tells you about your father.”
“Why?”
“Because Viktor is the reason Adrian never got to raise you.”
The line went silent.
My heart pounded.
“What does that mean?”
But Mom was already speaking again.
“And Elena?”
“Yes?”
“There’s something else.”
Damon watched my face.
I gripped the phone.
“What?”
My mother whispered the next words.
“Adrian didn’t die in that boating accident.”
I stopped breathing.
“What are you saying?”
She answered:
“I’m saying that for twenty-seven years, Viktor Voss has been hiding what really happened to your father.”
And downstairs, at that exact moment, security called Damon’s private line.
Viktor Voss had arrived.
May you like
Two hours early.
And he had brought Camille with him.
