Chapter 5 - The Confession
I stood in the dim kitchen, my hands trembling as I held the stack of surveillance photos.
Six months of my miserable, lonely life had been documented from the shadows.
I walked back into the living room and threw the heavy folder onto the table in front of Damian.
I demanded to know why he had been stalking me long before his sister supposedly died.
Damian did not look surprised, nor did he try to make an excuse.
He set his gun down slowly and ran a hand through his dark hair, looking incredibly exhausted.
He confessed that he had suspected the adoption agency was corrupt a long time ago.
He secretly ran a DNA test on the triplets and tracked down my medical records six months prior.
He knew I was the mother, and he knew my babies had been stolen from me.
Tears of betrayal streamed down my face as I asked him why he never told me the truth.
He stood up and closed the distance between us, his towering presence overwhelming my senses.
He admitted that he was a dangerous man with many enemies, and he didn't know how to bring me into his violent world safely.
He wanted to dismantle the black-market ring completely before bringing the children back to me.
His voice broke slightly as he told me he spent nights parked outside my apartment, wanting to knock on my door.
He gently reached out and wiped a tear from my cheek with his thumb.
The tension between us shifted from anger to something deep, electric, and terrifyingly magnetic.
Before I could pull away, Damian leaned down and kissed me.
It was a fierce, desperate kiss that tasted like whiskey, gunpowder, and unspoken apologies.
I kissed him back, letting my hands tangle in his hair as the emotional exhaustion of the day finally consumed me.
Suddenly, the encrypted satellite phone on the table began ringing loudly, breaking us apart.
Damian answered it, putting the call on speaker so I could hear.
It was Mark, his voice trembling with a mixture of fear and manic arrogance.
He told Damian that he had kidnapped Denny, the diner manager who fired me earlier today.
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Mark laughed coldly, warning us that if I did not surrender myself at the old docks by midnight, he would torture Denny to death.
And if Damian tried to intervene, Mark promised to leak the location of the safe house to the rival crime syndicate.
