6 - THE FATHER DAMIAN NEVER TALKED ABOUT
Damian always said his father abandoned the family when he was ten.
That part was true.
What he never said was why.
Victor Cross had not been an insurance broker.
He was a financial intermediary who structured property acquisitions for Langford Holdings.
Seventeen years earlier, when regulators began asking questions about relocation funds, Victor disappeared.
No indictment.
No trial.
Just gone.
Marcus found records showing he moved to Costa Rica.
Died there six years later.
Damian knew at least some of it.
“How much?” I asked.
He stared at the floor.
“My mother told me when I was twenty.”
“Before we met?”
“Yes.”
I felt something inside me collapse.
Four years.
Four years of telling him everything.
My fears.
My debts.
My parents.
He knew my father had investigated his.
And said nothing.
“Did you date me because of Dad’s files?”
“No.”
The answer came quickly.
Almost desperately.
“No, Ava. I met you at the coffee shop. That was real.”
“When did you realize who my father was?”
“About eight months in.”
I remembered that period.
Damian suddenly became more interested in my childhood.
My parents.
Storage boxes.
He offered to help organize everything.
The metal box vanished soon after.
“You stayed because of the files.”
“No.”
“Did you search them?”
“Yes.”
“Then stop correcting me.”
He closed his eyes.
Victoria stared at him as though meeting him for the first time.
Irony has excellent timing.
Damian continued.
“At first, I only wanted to know whether your father had written anything about mine.”
“And then you found the model.”
“Yes.”
“What did you do?”
“I used it for a graduate project.”
The project that got him recruited.
The project that launched his career.
The project everyone called brilliant.
My father’s work.
My childhood idea.
Damian’s name.
I laughed softly.
“So I didn’t help you through school.”
“Ava—”
“I helped create the thing that got you out of school.”
Silence.
Roman watched me carefully.
Not interfering.
I appreciated him for that.
Then Damian did what people do when truth becomes too expensive.
He attacked.
“You weren’t doing anything with it.”
The room froze.
I looked at him.
“What?”
“You had the files for years. You didn’t even know what was inside.”
“That made them yours?”
“No, but—”
“And because I was working two jobs while paying your rent, tuition and food, you decided I had failed to monetize my inheritance quickly enough?”
His face reddened.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“It is exactly what you meant.”
Victoria whispered:
“Damian.”
He snapped:
“Stay out of this.”
That was the moment she finally stepped away from him physically.
Small.
But visible.
Then Marcus uncovered another file.
A payment ledger.
Five thousand.
Ten thousand.
Thirty thousand.
Payments from Langford Holdings to a consulting entity.
CROSS STRATEGIC.
Damian’s name was attached.
The payments began two years before he claimed to know Victoria.
I looked at him.
“You were working for her family.”
He said nothing.
Roman asked:
“Doing what?”
Damian’s silence answered.
Then Victoria’s phone rang.
She looked at the screen.
Her father.
She answered.
He shouted loudly enough for all of us to hear.
“GET OUT OF THAT ROOM NOW.”
Victoria went pale.
“Dad?”
“Do not give Bennett anything else.”
She looked at the box.
Then at me.
“What else is there?”
Her father went silent.
Too late.
Victoria slowly removed the final folder.
Inside was a photograph.
My father.
Roman’s father.
Victoria’s father.
And Damian’s father.
All four men standing together seventeen years earlier.
Before the investigation.
Before the disappearance.
Before anyone told their children what had happened.
On the back, Dad wrote:
May you like
One of these men is stealing from the others.
And I was no longer sure which one.
