Chapter 4 - The Father Who Refused to Die
The private airfield was nearly empty when Damian arrived.
He appeared to be alone.
That was what Eleanor expected.
In reality, Robert’s team monitored the runway from three hidden positions. Police officers waited beyond the perimeter, and a tracking device had been placed inside Damian’s watch.
Elara remained under protection at a private hospital.
Before Damian left, she had taken his hand for the first time.
“Come back,” she whispered.
He had spent three years wishing to hear those words.
Now they gave him something more powerful than anger.
They gave him a reason to survive.
A black car waited beside the runway.
A driver instructed Damian to surrender his phone and enter.
He was taken to an abandoned aircraft hangar ten miles away.
Inside, his mother stood beneath a row of industrial lights.
Eleanor Hawthorne looked almost unchanged.
Her silver hair was perfectly styled. She wore a dark coat, gloves, and the expression of a queen receiving a disobedient subject.
Beside her, tied to a chair, sat Adrian Hawthorne.
Damian’s father.
Older.
Thinner.
But alive.
Their eyes met.
Adrian’s face crumpled.
“Son.”
Damian had imagined this moment countless times as a child. His father had disappeared during a family sailing trip when Damian was fourteen. Eleanor had said a storm swept him into the sea.
There had been no body.
Damian took one step forward.
Eleanor raised a pistol.
“Stay where you are.”
“Why is he alive?”
“Because killing him would have created questions. A grieving widow can control a company. A woman accused of murdering her husband cannot.”
Adrian struggled against the restraints.
“She forged everything, Damian. The accident, my will, the transfer of voting shares.”
Eleanor struck him across the face.
Damian’s hands curled into fists.
“Touch him again and this ends badly.”
Eleanor smiled.
“You still believe you are in control.”
“I froze your accounts.”
“You froze the accounts you knew about.”
“You lost Celeste.”
“Celeste was useful, not important.”
Damian looked at his father.
“Where have you been?”
“Moving between safe houses,” Adrian answered. “Your mother kept me alive to sign documents and approve transfers. When I refused, she threatened you.”
Eleanor tilted the pistol toward Damian.
“Family loyalty is such an efficient weapon.”
“Why Elara?” Damian asked.
“Because she found Adrian’s records. She discovered that the company shares you inherited were stolen from him. She intended to go to the authorities.”
“She trusted you.”
“She was emotional. Weak.”
“No,” Damian said. “She was brave enough to face you.”
Eleanor’s expression hardened.
“Your wife would have ruined everything generations of Hawthornes built.”
“You mean everything you stole.”
“I made this family powerful.”
“You made it rotten.”
For the first time, anger cracked Eleanor’s composure.
“I sacrificed my entire life for you!”
“You imprisoned my father and tortured my wife.”
“I protected your future!”
“You protected your throne.”
Eleanor fired.
The bullet struck the floor beside Damian.
Outside, Robert’s team prepared to move, but Damian subtly raised one hand.
Not yet.
He needed Eleanor to confess more.
“You arranged the clinic fire,” he said.
“Yes.”
“How many people died?”
“People who were already liabilities.”
Adrian closed his eyes in horror.
Damian’s watch transmitted every word.
“And the company accounts?”
“Necessary funds were moved through humanitarian foundations. No one investigates money sent to sick children.”
“You used charities to finance kidnapping.”
Eleanor laughed.
“I used whatever worked.”
A door opened behind her.
Two armed men entered, dragging Marcus Hale between them.
Damian’s attorney had blood on his temple.
Eleanor looked pleased.
“Did you truly believe I wouldn’t recognize your surveillance plan?”
Damian’s confidence shifted.
Eleanor approached him and removed his watch.
She dropped it onto the concrete and crushed it beneath her heel.
Outside, Robert’s team lost the signal.
“You inherited your father’s conscience,” Eleanor said. “That has always been your greatest weakness.”
She pointed the pistol at Adrian.
“Sign the restoration agreement, Damian. Return control of Hawthorne Global to me, unfreeze the accounts, and publicly announce that Elara is mentally unstable.”
“Never.”
“Then you will watch your father die.”
Adrian looked at his son.
“Don’t do it.”
Eleanor pressed the pistol against his head.
Damian’s face became unreadable.
“Give me the papers.”
Eleanor smiled.
A guard placed the agreement on a table.
Damian picked up the pen.
Before he signed, the hangar lights went out.
Gunshots erupted in the darkness.
Someone seized Damian and pulled him behind a steel container.
When the emergency lights flickered on, Eleanor was gone.
So was Adrian.
Marcus lay unconscious near the door.
Robert’s team stormed the hangar seconds later.
On the floor, they found a trail of blood leading toward a service exit.
Beside it lay Adrian’s wedding ring.
Damian picked it up.
There was fresh blood inside the band.
Then his borrowed phone rang.
Elara’s protection officer was calling.
Damian answered.
The officer’s panicked voice filled the line.
“Mr. Hawthorne, your wife is missing.”
May you like
Damian went still.
“They took her from the hospital.”
