Chapter 11 - The Blood Red Seal
Caitlyn stared at the red wax seal, her vision blurring as the world tilted violently beneath her feet. The thick paper trembled in her hands. The photograph of the crushed metal, the twisted wreckage of her parents' car, burned itself into her memory all over again. It was not a tragic accident caused by a sleepy truck driver on a rainy highway. It was a calculated, paid execution. And the people who had signed the check were the very people she was now working for.
A heavy set of footsteps echoed softly on the hardwood floor of the library. Damian walked into the room, holding two glasses of expensive bourbon. He had discarded his suit jacket, his white dress shirt rolled up to his elbows, revealing the faint scars of his violent past. He looked relaxed, a rare smile softening his sharp, dangerous features.
His smile vanished instantly the moment he saw the open manila folder in her hands.
The crystal glasses slipped from Damian's grasp, shattering into a hundred pieces on the expensive Persian rug. The amber liquid seeped into the dark wool, filling the quiet room with the sharp scent of alcohol. Damian did not look at the broken glass. His dark eyes remained entirely fixated on the horrifying documents Caitlyn was holding.
"Caitlyn," Damian whispered, his voice completely hollow.
"Is this real?" she asked, her voice cracking into a desperate, agonizing sob. "Tell me this is a fake file. Tell me the Chicago crew planted this to tear us apart."
Damian took a slow, agonizing step forward, entirely ignoring the sharp shards of glass cutting into the soles of his shoes. He looked at her with a profound, soul-crushing sorrow that answered her question before he even opened his mouth.
"It is real," Damian confessed, his voice barely above a whisper.
Caitlyn stepped backward, hitting the edge of the heavy mahogany desk. She felt like she was suffocating. The man who had saved her brother, the man she had fallen deeply and irrevocably in love with, was tied to the murder of her family.
"You killed them," she gasped out, dropping the folder onto the floor.
"No," Damian said sharply, a flash of desperate panic crossing his stoic face. "Caitlyn, I swear to you on my life, I did not order that hit. I was twenty-two years old when your parents died. My father, Arthur Hamilton, was the head of the syndicate. He ordered the strike."
"Why didn't you tell me?" she screamed, tears finally spilling over her cheeks in hot, angry rivers. "You knew who I was this entire time. You knew what your family did to mine, and you brought me into your bed anyway."
"I brought you into my company to protect you!" Damian argued fiercely, closing the distance between them despite her protests. He did not touch her, respecting the physical boundary her body language was screaming for, but his eyes pleaded with her.
"When I overthrew my father and took the empire, I found his private ledgers," Damian explained rapidly, his chest heaving. "I found out he had murdered an innocent investigative journalist and his wife just to cover up a shipping scandal. I tracked you down. I saw you struggling to pay for Noah's medical bills. I couldn't bring your parents back, but I swore I would spend the rest of my life making sure you and your brother never suffered again."
Caitlyn looked at the man she loved, seeing the desperate truth in his eyes, but the pain in her heart was simply too immense to process. The foundation of their entire relationship was built on a graveyard of secrets.
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"I cannot look at you right now," Caitlyn whispered, her voice devoid of all emotion. "I cannot be in this house."
She turned and walked out of the library, leaving Damian standing alone in the center of the room, surrounded by broken glass and the ghosts of his father's unforgivable sins.
