Chapter 8 - THE NIGHT I WAS BORN
Stellan did not.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
My mother sat down slowly.
“I was nineteen when I had Selene. Her father wasn’t around. The hospital was crowded, and there was a shooting downstairs.”
She looked at Stellan.
“A boy came through the maternity floor bleeding from the face. Maybe twelve or thirteen. He had that exact scar.”
Stellan’s voice went quiet. “Which hospital?”
“Mercy General.”
His face changed.
He had been thirteen when Victor’s men attacked his father outside Mercy General. Stellan was cut by shattered glass and rushed through a service corridor while his father’s guards fought downstairs.
“That was me,” he said.
My mother nodded.
Then she added, “Your father was there too.”
Stellan frowned. “My father?”
“He came into my room.”
“Why?”
She looked ashamed.
“Because he knew Selene’s father.”
I stared at her.
“You told me Dad left before I was born.”
“He did.”
“Who was he?”
My mother looked at Stellan.
“Daniel Vale worked for the Cross family.”
Stellan’s jaw tightened.
My father had not been a construction worker like Mom claimed. He had been an accountant inside Cross Holdings.
Daniel discovered Victor moving money through shell companies. Two weeks before my birth, he agreed to testify for Stellan’s father.
Then he disappeared.
“Was he killed?” I asked.
My mother cried.
“I don’t know.”
Stellan did.
His voice was flat. “Daniel Vale was listed as a missing witness in my father’s private files.”
I looked at him.
“So our families were connected before we ever met?”
“Yes.”
My mother reached into her coat.
Elias moved instantly, but she only pulled out a tiny brass key.
“Victor kept asking me where Daniel’s box was.”
“What box?”
“The one your father left me before he vanished.”
She placed the key in my hand.
“I never opened it.”
“Where is it?”
My mother swallowed.
“In a bank vault under your name.”
Stellan stared at the key.
Then Elias’s phone rang.
May you like
He answered and went pale.
“Sir, the bank branch is on fire.”
