Chapter 9 - The Night Before We Met
I watched the footage twelve times.
Each time hurt differently.
Derek had always told me we first met at a charity dinner.
He had spilled wine near my dress.
He had made me laugh.
He had asked for my number.
Now I knew he had already seen me before that night.
Maybe only in photographs.
Maybe in files.
But I had never been a coincidence.
Rebecca found Derek’s phone records from six years earlier.
The morning after my father died, Derek called Malcolm seven times.
Then he contacted a private investigator.
The investigator searched one name.
Mine.
Three months later, Derek introduced himself to me.
I went upstairs and vomited.
Rosa held Isla while I sat on the bathroom floor.
When I finally returned downstairs, Luka was waiting.
“You knew.”
“Not all of it.”
“You knew he had met my father.”
“I suspected.”
“You should have told me immediately.”
“Yes.”
His answer stopped me.
No excuse.
No defense.
Just yes.
I looked away.
“Why did my father trust you?”
Luka rubbed one tattooed hand across his face.
“Because I was seventeen when Malcolm Hayes tried to make me disappear.”
I stared at him.
Luka had grown up in foster care.
At seventeen, he witnessed an assault outside a research laboratory connected to M-17.
Malcolm’s lawyers planted drugs in Luka’s car.
My father, then an auditor investigating the laboratory, found surveillance footage proving the drugs had been planted.
He testified.
Luka walked free.
“My father saved you.”
“Yes.”
“And you promised him something.”
Luka looked at Isla.
“I promised that if he ever failed to come home, I would watch over you.”
Anger flared.
“Then where were you six years ago?”
His face tightened.
“Looking for the wrong enemy.”
The words landed heavily.
He had believed my father’s death was connected to another M-17 executive.
By the time he discovered Malcolm’s involvement, I was already married to Derek.
“Why didn’t you warn me?”
“Because I needed proof.”
“And now?”
“Now I have some.”
A security alarm interrupted us.
One of Luka’s men entered.
“We have a breach.”
Everyone froze.
“Where?”
“East wall.”
Luka looked at me.
“Take Isla upstairs.”
Then another guard called through the radio.
“No intruder.”
“What?”
The guard sounded confused.
“Someone threw something over the wall.”
Minutes later, Luka returned holding a fireproof document pouch.
Inside was a hospital bracelet.
Old.
Yellowed.
The name printed across it made my heart stop.
BABY GIRL BENNETT B.
Below it was the date of my birth.
May you like
If I had been Baby A, then Baby B had existed.
And someone wanted me to know she was still part of the story.
