Chapter 9 - The Woman in the Photograph
Damian’s younger sister, Sofia Vale, had supposedly died in a house fire nine years earlier.
Damian had identified her body by a necklace found beneath the debris.
He had buried what remained beside their mother.
Now Marcus Reed claimed she was alive.
The ambulance carried Marcus into emergency surgery while federal agents secured the shipyard.
Damian said almost nothing during the drive to the hospital.
Della sat beside him.
“You don’t have to believe Marcus.”
“I watched Sofia’s coffin enter the ground.”
“Caleb had a coffin too.”
Damian looked at her.
The comparison was painful, but necessary.
Bodies could be misidentified.
Records could be changed.
Silas Vance had built an entire system around false identities.
At the hospital, Marcus survived surgery but remained unconscious.
Reed’s phone contained one outgoing message sent minutes before the council meeting.
THEY KNOW. MOVE THE DRIVE.
The recipient was saved as S.V.
“Silas Vance?” Della asked.
Damian shook his head.
“Marcus would not warn Silas that Silas knew.”
“Sofia Vale.”
The number led to a prepaid phone last active near a church shelter in Brooklyn.
By dawn, Damian’s team found security footage of a woman leaving the shelter.
She wore a gray coat and kept her face lowered.
When the image was enhanced, Damian walked away from the screen.
The woman had his mother’s eyes.
They found her in a narrow apartment above a closed bookstore.
Damian entered first.
Della waited behind him with two federal agents.
A woman stood near the window holding a pistol.
She looked approximately thirty-five, with dark hair cut short and a burn scar along the left side of her neck.
“Sofia,” Damian said.
The gun shook in her hand.
“You shouldn’t have come.”
“You let me bury you.”
“You would have died if I returned.”
Damian’s voice became hard. “You do not get to decide whether grief was safer for me.”
Sofia lowered the weapon.
For several seconds, neither sibling moved.
Then Damian crossed the room and pulled her into his arms.
Sofia resisted for one breath.
After that, she broke.
Della turned away, giving them what little privacy the room allowed.
When they finally separated, Sofia looked at Della.
“You’re the woman from the road.”
Della stared at her.
“You know about that night?”
“I was there.”
Damian stepped back.
“What?”
Sofia sat at the small kitchen table.
“Father discovered Silas was trafficking medical identities through the foundation. He planned to give records to federal investigators. You agreed to carry part of the evidence.”
“I remember.”
“What you did not know was that Father had already made a deal with Silas.”
Damian’s face darkened.
“He sold me out?”
“He planned to sacrifice you and keep control of the organization.”
The revelation struck Damian with visible force.
Sofia continued.
“I overheard them. I tried to warn you, but Marcus intercepted me. He said the phones were compromised. We followed the assassins to Route Forty.”
“You and Marcus?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you stop them?”
“We were too late. Your car was already over the embankment. Then Della arrived.”
Sofia looked at Della.
“You climbed down through the rain before the fuel ignited. Marcus wanted to pull you away, but you refused to leave Damian.”
Della remembered a shadow at the top of the hill.
A man calling for emergency services.
Marcus.
“He saved both of us,” she said.
Sofia nodded.
“After the explosion, Silas realized someone had interfered. Marcus hid me because I had heard the agreement between Father and Silas. Two years later, Silas found me.”
“The fire,” Damian said.
“I escaped through the basement. Marcus used the body of a woman Silas’s people had already killed. The dental records were changed through one of the foundation clinics.”
Damian sat across from her.
“You could have contacted me.”
“I tried once. Frank Deluca intercepted the message. Two days later, three people at the shelter where I lived were murdered.”
Damian’s anger weakened into grief.
Sofia reached beneath the table and removed a metal box.
Inside was Owen’s flash drive.
“Marcus brought this last night.”
Della immediately thought of Caleb’s files.
“Have you opened it?”
“Yes.”
“What did he fail to upload?”
Sofia connected the drive to an offline laptop.
A video appeared.
Arthur Vale sat in a study beside Silas Vance. The recording date was eight years earlier.
Arthur looked directly into the camera.
“If Damian survives, the organization becomes unstable. He wants legitimate businesses. He wants rules. Men like him convince themselves power can be clean.”
Silas poured a drink.
“And your daughter?”
“Sofia knows nothing.”
The video shifted.
Another person entered the study.
Cordelia.
She looked no older than twenty.
Arthur handed her a folder.
“After the crash, find the waitress. The woman who pulled Damian out. Make sure she never understands what she saw.”
Della stopped breathing.
Cordelia had known about her for seven years.
She had not discovered Della recently.
She had been waiting.
The video ended.
Sofia opened another file.
It contained a current hospital record.
Della Marsh.
Pregnancy details.
Blood type.
Expected delivery date.
A note had been added three weeks earlier.
INFANT MATCHES REQUESTED PROFILE. TRANSFER AFTER DELIVERY.
Della felt the baby move.
She pressed both arms around her stomach.
“They weren’t only watching me for Caleb’s evidence,” she whispered.
Sofia shook her head.
“No.”
Damian’s face became terrifyingly calm.
“They planned to take her child.”
A vehicle engine roared outside.
The apartment windows exploded inward.
Smoke canisters struck the floor.
Federal agents shouted.
Damian reached for Della, but masked men poured through the rear door.
A needle entered Della’s neck.
The room blurred.
The last thing she saw was Cordelia standing beyond the smoke.
May you like
“Don’t damage the baby,” Cordelia ordered.
“The buyer wants her alive.”
