THE CONTRACT SAYS FOREVER

THE AUNT WHO VANISHED

Chapter 10: The Aunt Who Vanished

"Absolutely not." Damian's voice was flat, immovable. "You are not meeting this woman alone."

"She's my aunt, Damian."

"She's also someone who hacked into a dormant corporate account, hired investigators to track down a woman she helped erase from existence, and sent you a threatening photograph less than two hours ago." He paced the length of the living room, jaw tight, every line of his body radiating barely restrained fury. "Forgive me if I don't consider 'family' a compelling enough reason to walk you into a potential trap."

"And if I don't go, what then? We just wait for her next move? Let her control every part of this?" Elena crossed her arms, refusing to back down despite the fear coiling in her stomach. "She said she'd tell me the truth about my mother's death. Damian, if there's even a chance that accident wasn't an accident either—"

"Then we investigate it properly. With security. With people who aren't emotionally compromised."

"You're one to talk about emotionally compromised."

That landed. His jaw ticked, but he didn't deny it.

"I'm scared for you," he admitted quietly, some of the fury draining out of his voice, replaced by something rawer. "Is that so difficult to understand? Three days ago I didn't know you. Now the idea of you walking into an unknown situation with a woman capable of orchestrating everything we've uncovered tonight makes me feel something I haven't felt in seven years."

"What's that?"

"Powerless." The word came out like it cost him something to admit. "I've spent years making sure no one could ever make me feel that way again. And here you are, undoing it in a matter of days."

Elena's anger softened, just slightly, at the vulnerability bleeding through his usual composure. "I'm not asking you to feel powerless. I'm asking you to trust me to make my own choice about my own family."

"Then let me come with you. Not alone, not confronting her the moment you walk in, but nearby. Close enough to reach you if something goes wrong."

Elena considered this, weighing his fear against her own need for answers. "Fine. But you stay out of sight unless I signal for you."

"Elena—"

"That's the deal, Damian. Take it or I go without telling you where."

His eyes narrowed, clearly displeased, but after a long moment he exhaled sharply and nodded. "Fine. But Vera comes too. And we do this on our terms, not hers — public place, cameras, an exit strategy."

"Agreed."

The café Diane suggested sat on a quiet corner near the old Voss family offices, the kind of place with mismatched chairs and the smell of burnt espresso, entirely unremarkable except for what it represented — the last place Elena remembered visiting with her mother before the accident, back when she was small enough to still believe the world was simple.

Diane was already seated when Elena arrived, and the resemblance to her late mother struck Elena so hard she nearly stumbled. Same sharp cheekbones, same nervous habit of turning a ring around her finger, same eyes that studied Elena now with an unreadable mixture of guilt and longing.

"You look just like her," Diane said quietly, gesturing to the seat across from her. "It's strange, seeing her face on someone so much younger."

"Why did you disappear?" Elena asked, skipping past pleasantries entirely. "Why did you let me believe you didn't care enough to stay in touch?"

Diane's hands trembled slightly around her coffee cup. "Because your father threatened me."

"What?"

"After your mother died, I started asking questions. About the accident. About inconsistencies in the police report that never sat right with me. Your mother was a careful driver, Elena. She didn't take that coastal road fast, not with you and Sophia in the car—"

"Sophia wasn't in the car that night," Elena interrupted. "We found that out tonight. She'd already been sent away."

Something flickered across Diane's face — not surprise, but confirmation. "I suspected as much, eventually. It took me years to piece together what your father and Damian's father had done. By the time I understood the full scope of it, I'd already lost everything trying to get answers."

"Lost what?"

"My job. My reputation. Your father made sure of it, the moment I started digging too close to the truth about the accident." Diane's voice hardened. "He accused me publicly of stealing from the company, destroyed my credibility, made sure no one would believe anything I said afterward. I had to disappear and rebuild under a different name just to survive."

Elena's chest tightened with a complicated tangle of grief and fury. "So this — the threats, the investigators, all of it — this is revenge?"

"This is justice." Diane's eyes hardened with a conviction that unsettled Elena deeply. "Your father destroyed my life to protect his secrets. He let his own daughter believe her twin sister was dead for seven years. He deserves to lose everything the same way I did."

"And Sophia? Using her like a bargaining chip — how is that justice?"

"I would never actually hurt her," Diane said, sounding almost offended by the suggestion. "I only wanted your father and Damian's father to understand what it feels like to have something precious taken from you against your will. Fear, Elena. That's all I wanted them to feel."

"You terrified me too. And Damian."

"I'm sorry for that." Diane didn't sound entirely convincing. "You weren't meant to be caught in the middle of this."

"But I am. So tell me the truth about my mother's death. All of it. No more games."

Diane hesitated, glancing around the café as if checking for unseen threats, before leaning forward, voice dropping to barely a whisper.

"Your mother didn't die by accident, Elena. The brakes on her car were sabotaged." Diane's hands tightened around her cup until her knuckles went white. "And I know exactly who ordered it done, because he confessed everything to me the night before he disappeared entirely from both our lives."

"Who?"

Diane's eyes lifted, filled with something that looked disturbingly like fear.

"Your father's business partner," she whispered. "The man everyone believes died in a boating accident five years ago. Except he didn't die either, Elena. He's very much alive, and from what my sources tell me, he's been quietly rebuilding his fortune under a new identity — one that recently invested a significant amount of money into a company you know very well."

"What company?"

Diane's expression turned grim, final, devastating.

"Cross Enterprises," she said. "He's been sitting on Damian's own board for the past two years, hiding in plain sight the entire time."