Chapter 18 - The Question He Feared|
Declan stared at the letter.
“Your mother knew I would be involved?”
“Or she knew someone like you would be.”
He looked away.
Sophia's voice was quiet.
“Why did you cry at the hospital?”
He turned back toward her.
“Because I thought you were dead.”
“Was that all?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
He sat across from her, elbows on his knees, looking like a man who had run out of safe places to hide.
“When my mother died, I was the one who found her. My father had gone ahead to a meeting. I stayed home because I had a fever. I heard the explosion from the back room and ran outside.”
Sophia said nothing.
“I saw the car burning. I heard my mother calling my name. I couldn't get to her.”
His voice grew rough.
“After that, I convinced myself that if I became powerful enough, no one would ever be able to take someone from me again.”
“And when I was shot?”
“I saw the same scene repeating. You were on the ground, and I couldn't make you answer. I thought I had failed again.”
Sophia reached across the table and touched his hand.
“You didn't shoot me.”
“I brought you into danger.”
“You walked me to the station. You didn't know someone was waiting.”
He shook his head.
“I should have known.”
“You can't protect people from every possible danger, Declan. You can only decide what kind of person you become when danger comes.”
He looked at her hand over his.
For a moment, the distance between them seemed to disappear.
Then Sophia asked the question that had been troubling her.
“Who is the fourth person?”
Declan withdrew the letter and studied the names.
“Someone who knew my father, Adrian, Kessler, and Victor. Someone who knew about your mother's company and could reactivate it years later.”
“Someone with access to our records.”
He nodded.
Sophia thought about the people who had been around them from the beginning. Marcus. The attorneys. The board members. The company accountants. The police liaison.
Then she remembered something.
The first night at the hospital, after she woke, a nurse had told her that Declan had never left her side. But there had been a moment when he stepped outside to take a call.
She had heard him speaking through the half-open door.
He had said, “No. Not yet. She doesn't know.”
Sophia had assumed he was talking about the shooting.
Now the memory returned with frightening clarity.
“Declan, who did you call the night I woke up?”
He looked confused.
“My attorney.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That the evidence had been found.”
“What evidence?”
He hesitated.
Sophia's heart began to pound.
“Declan.”
He took a slow breath.
“My father left a second ledger. I found it shortly after the shooting.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because it contained information about your mother, and I wanted to verify it before involving you.”
She stood, pain pulling at her shoulder.
“You promised not to make decisions about my life without asking me.”
“I know.”
“You broke that promise.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“And you decided that meant you could keep me ignorant.”
He rose too.
“Sophia, I didn't want you to discover that your mother might have been involved in something dangerous.”
“She was my mother. I deserved to know.”
He had no answer.
Sophia walked to the window, breathing through the pain.
“I care about you, Declan. More than I planned to. But if you want me to trust you, you have to stop confusing secrecy with protection.”
He lowered his head.
“You're right.”
She turned toward him.
“Show me the ledger.”
He went to the safe in his study and returned with a thin black book.
Inside were payments to a private investigator, transfers to a company connected to Victor Sloane, and a handwritten note from Declan's father.
The fourth person is the one who has stood beside my son since childhood.
Sophia looked up.
Declan's face had gone pale.
May you like
There was only one person who fit the description.
His godfather, Robert Hale—the family attorney who had helped them uncover the truth.
