Chapter 5 The Father's Hand

The knock came at midnight.

Elena was not asleep. She was sitting by the window, watching the garden lights go off one by one. Her hands had finally stopped shaking.

"Miss Elena." It was Martha, the housekeeper. Her voice was low. "Your father wants you in his study. Now."

Elena knew that voice. Martha had used it all her life, whenever a storm was coming.

She pulled on a sweater and walked down the dark hall.

Her father sat behind his big desk. His tie hung loose. A glass of whiskey stood by his hand, almost empty.

He did not ask her to sit. He never did.

"Close the door."

She closed it.

For a long moment, he just looked at her. Then he picked up a stack of papers and threw them on the desk. They slid across the wood and stopped near her fingers.

The marriage agreement. Her name and Damien's, printed side by side.

"Do you know how long this took?" he said. "Two years. Two years of dinners and meetings and smiling at Mr. Cole like a fool."

"I know, Father."

"You know." He laughed, short and ugly. "And tonight you stood up in front of both families and threw it in my face."

"I didn't throw anything. I only changed one name."

"One name!" His hand hit the desk. The glass jumped. "You made me look like a man who can't control his own daughter."

There it was. Not you hurt yourself. Not are you okay.

Just me.

In her first life, she had stood in this same room many times. When Damien forgot their anniversary. When he shouted at her at a party and everyone saw. She had come home crying, and her father had said the same thing every time.

Go back to your husband. Don't embarrass this family.

Not once had he asked if she was happy.

"Tomorrow morning," he said, "you will call Damien. You will say you were tired. You will say sorry to Mr. Cole. And then you will sign the paper you were supposed to sign."

"No."

He blinked.

"What did you say?"

"I said no." Her voice was quiet. It surprised her how quiet it was. "I'm not marrying Damien."

He stood up. He was a big man, and he knew how to use it. He came around the desk slowly, the way he used to when she was small and had broken something.

"Then hear me," he said. "If you do this, you are finished in this house. No job at Hart Shipping. No money. No car. I will cut you off so fast your head will spin. Let's see how long Adrian Cole wants a girl with nothing."

Once, those words would have crushed her. She would have cried. She would have said yes to anything.

But she had already lost everything once. She had lost it in a hospital bed, with nobody holding her hand.

What could he take that was worse than that?

"Father," she said. "Can I ask you something?"

He frowned.

"Why do the Coles want this marriage?"

"Don't be stupid. Our shipping routes. Our ports in the south."

"Right. They want a Hart. They never said which one." She looked down at the papers. "Damien runs marketing. He plans parties. Adrian runs the whole company. Every contract, every port, every dollar goes across his desk."

Her father said nothing.

"If I marry Damien, you get a son-in-law who forgets meetings. If I marry Adrian, you get the CEO of Cole Group at your dinner table." She paused. "Which one is the better deal?"

The room went still. Somewhere in the house, a clock ticked.

She watched his face. She watched him do the math, the way he did math on everything, even his own children. She saw the exact second he knew she was right.

She also saw how much he hated it.

"Who taught you to talk like this?" he said slowly.

You did, she thought. Twenty-three years of watching you.

"Nobody," she said. "Good night, Father."

She opened the door. He did not stop her. But as she stepped into the hall, she heard him speak, very low, almost to himself.

"You were always the soft one."

Elena did not turn around.

Not anymore, she thought.

Her legs only started shaking when she reached her room.

She leaned against the door and slid down to the floor. She pressed her hands over her face and breathed. In. Out. Slow, the way a kind nurse had once taught her, in another life.

She had won. It did not feel like winning. It felt like walking out of a fire and finding your clothes still smoking.

Then something white caught her eye.

An envelope, pushed under her door. It must have come while she was downstairs.

She picked it up. It was thick and soft at the corners, like it had been opened and closed many times. Inside was money. Old bills of every size, folded flat. The kind of money someone saves one bill at a time, for years.

There was a small card with it, in her mother's neat handwriting.

For when you need to run. Don't tell your father. —Mom

Elena read it three times.

Her mother. Her quiet, gentle mother, who never argued. Who said "yes, dear" to every word her husband spoke. Who flinched when his voice got loud.

How long had she been hiding this?

In her first life, Elena had never once asked her mother if she was happy either. She had been too busy chasing Damien. Too busy being invisible to see that someone else in this house was invisible too.

Her eyes burned. She held the card against her chest.

"I see you, Mom," she whispered. "I'm sorry it took me so long."

She hid the envelope inside her old teddy bear. Then she climbed into bed and pulled the blanket up to her chin.

For the first time since she woke up, she thought she might actually sleep.

Her phone buzzed on the nightstand.

She almost ignored it. It was probably Damien.

It buzzed again. She reached for it.

Unknown number.

Congratulations on your engagement, Miss Hart. I look forward to meeting you very soon.

No name. No picture. Nothing else.

Elena sat up in the dark. The blanket fell away. Cold spread through her chest, slow, like water filling a room.

She had seen messages like this before. Polite. Warm. Perfect. In her first life, they had come to Elise, one after another, for months. Elise used to smile at her phone and call the sender "a real gentleman."

Three weeks after the last message, Elise was dead.

Elena's fingers went numb around the phone.

She did not need a name. She knew exactly who wrote like that.

Victor Lane had found her.

And this time, he had found her first.