Chapter 14 - The Last Place She Would Run
Daniel moved Lena, Hope, and Mara to a federal safe house.
He remained awake beside the window all night.
Lena found him before sunrise.
“You should sleep.”
“So should you.”
“I spent two years sleeping lightly.”
Daniel looked at her.
“I spent two years waking up and forgetting you were gone for three seconds. Those were the best three seconds of every day.”
Lena’s face crumpled.
He crossed the room but stopped before touching her.
“I don’t know what you need from me.”
“Time.”
“You have all of it.”
She stepped into his arms.
For the first time since the hotel, Lena allowed herself to be held.
Daniel did not ask her to forgive him for failing to find her. He only promised he would never again let anyone speak for her, decide for her, or hide the truth from her.
Rebecca entered with a map.
Evelyn had emptied several offshore accounts. Her private plane remained grounded. Her passport had not been used.
“She didn’t flee the country,” Rebecca said.
Lena studied the map.
“She wouldn’t leave without Arthur’s original letter.”
“We have it,” Daniel said.
“No. We have the letter addressed to me. Evelyn believes there was another one.”
Daniel remembered his father’s final weeks. Arthur had repeatedly asked to be taken to the family lake house, but Evelyn refused.
The lake house had been closed since his death.
“She’ll go there,” Daniel said.
Rebecca prepared a tactical team.
But Lena noticed something on the list of seized evidence.
The blue stone ring was missing.
Evelyn had not been wearing it when processed at the jail.
The ring was not only an access key to the bunker.
It likely opened a hidden vault at the lake house.
Daniel looked at the sleeping child in Lena’s arms.
“What would my father hide that was more dangerous than the ledger?”
Lena remembered Evelyn’s words during captivity.
The child will never own what should have been mine.
“It isn’t money,” Lena said.
May you like
“It’s proof of who legally owns the Cross empire.”
👉 Evelyn was racing to destroy the document that could strip her of everything—even before a jury heard Lena’s name.
