Chapter 4 - His Father's Last Secret
Jackson's father had died twelve years earlier.
Heart attack.
At least that was what everyone believed.
Victor told a different story.
“Your father discovered what I was doing.”
“What were you doing?”
“Making us rich.”
Victor's voice contained no remorse.
Jackson's father had apparently discovered that Victor was laundering money through shell corporations tied to Reed Industries.
He intended to expose him.
He died three days later.
Jackson gripped the phone.
“You killed him.”
“Prove it.”
Victor disconnected.
Jackson stood in silence.
Emily touched his arm.
That small gesture brought him back.
Marcus opened the flash drive again.
There were encrypted folders.
Emily explained she had spent three years protecting them.
“How did you get these?”
“From your car.”
Jackson stared at her.
“There was a metal case under your passenger seat.”
She had taken it while pulling him from the wreckage.
Victor's men had been searching for it.
Jackson suddenly understood.
The assassination attempt had not been about him personally.
Victor believed Jackson possessed his father's evidence.
Emily had unknowingly taken it.
For three years she had been running because of something she didn't understand.
Jackson looked at her.
“You lost three years because of me.”
“No.”
“You abandoned your life.”
“I kept you alive.”
Their eyes met.
Something old and unfinished passed between them.
Jackson remembered fragments.
A coffee shop.
Emily laughing.
A summer evening.
Her hand in his.
Memories he had dismissed as dreams after the accident.
“Emily…”
She looked away.
“You said you loved me.”
Her eyes closed.
“We were together before the accident.”
Jackson's breath caught.
“How long?”
“Eight months.”
He stared at her.
“I don't remember.”
“I know.”
Emily finally explained the cruelest part.
The accident had caused gaps in Jackson's memory.
Victor exploited them.
Everyone around Jackson was told Emily was merely a stranger who had rescued him.
Their relationship was erased.
Photographs disappeared.
Messages were deleted.
People were paid.
Jackson had spent three years searching for the woman who saved his life without knowing she had also been the woman he intended to marry.
Emily reached beneath her collar.
A thin chain appeared.
On it hung a ring.
Jackson recognized it immediately.
His mother's engagement ring.
He had given it to Emily.
A memory struck him.
A rooftop.
Emily crying.
Jackson kneeling.
“Marry me.”
He stumbled backward.
Emily caught him.
“You remember?”
“Pieces.”
Jackson looked at the ring.
Then at her.
“I proposed.”
“Yes.”
“And you said yes.”
Emily smiled through tears.
“Yes.”
For the first time in three years, Jackson understood why his heart had reacted before his memory did.
He had loved her.
Perhaps some part of him still did.
But they had no time to recover the past.
Marcus suddenly stared at the security monitors.
“Jackson.”
Three black SUVs had stopped outside the hotel.
Men emerged.
Victor's men.
Marcus locked the security-room door.
“We need to move.”
Jackson took Emily's hand.
This time she didn't pull away.
May you like
They ran.
And somewhere beneath the hotel, an alarm began to scream.
