THE CONTRACT SAYS FOREVER

THE THREAT

Chapter 7: The Threat

Elena read the message three times before the words fully registered.

Tell your new wife to ask her father what really happened to Sophia. And tell her to watch her back — some secrets don't want to stay buried.

"Who sent this?" Her voice came out thinner than she wanted.

"I don't know." Damian was already dialing someone, phone pressed to his ear, his other hand still holding hers like he could shield her from a threat that had already arrived through a screen. "Marcus, I need you to trace a number for me. Now. Yes, tonight." A pause. "I don't care what time it is."

Elena sank onto the arm of the couch, her legs unsteady. "This is real. Someone actually knows about Sophia. Someone's watching us."

"It appears that way." Damian ended the call and crouched in front of her, taking both her hands in his, his expression a careful mix of fury and restraint. "Elena, look at me."

She did, though it took effort.

"I need you to think carefully. Has anything felt off the last few days? Anyone following you, any strange calls, anything that felt wrong even in a small way?"

She started to shake her head, then stopped. "There was a woman. At the press conference yesterday. She wasn't wearing a press badge, and she was staring at me the entire time, not taking notes, not asking questions. Just watching."

Damian's jaw tightened. "Can you describe her?"

"Older. Fifties, maybe. Gray-streaked hair, sharp eyes. She left before the Q&A ended." Elena frowned, trying to pull the memory into focus. "Actually — she looked familiar. I can't place why."

"Familiar how?"

"I don't know. Like I'd seen a photo of her somewhere, a long time ago." Elena pressed her fingers to her temples, frustration mounting. "This is insane, Damian. Yesterday I didn't even know I had a sister. Now there's some stranger out there who apparently knows more about my own family than I do."

"We'll figure out who she is." His thumb traced idle, soothing circles against the back of her hand, an unconscious gesture that told her more about his worry than his words did. "In the meantime, I'm having security assigned to you. Someone with you at all times until we know what we're dealing with."

"I don't need a babysitter."

"You need protection, and there's a difference." His voice sharpened, edged with something that sounded dangerously close to fear dressed up as command. "Elena, someone broke into my father's estate tonight and accessed files connected to a death that may not have been an accident. That same someone has your private number, which means they have resources most people don't. I am not taking chances with your safety."

She wanted to argue, mostly out of reflex, but the fear in his eyes stopped her. This wasn't Damian being controlling for the sake of it. This was something closer to terror, carefully leashed.

"Okay," she said quietly. "Security. Fine."

Relief flickered across his face before the mask reasserted itself. "Thank you."

"But I'm coming with you to your father's estate."

"Absolutely not."

"Damian." She stood, closing what little distance remained between them, forcing him to look at her instead of retreating into his usual command-and-control posture. "This concerns my family too. My sister. My father's confession. I am not going to sit here in this apartment pretending I'm not involved when I am the entire reason this is happening."

"It's not safe."

"Neither is staying here alone after receiving a threat." She held his gaze, unflinching. "I'm coming. You can either bring me with you, or I'll follow in a separate car, and honestly, I think we both know which option keeps me safer."

For a long moment, he simply looked at her — really looked, like he was seeing something new, something that made his jaw tighten and his eyes darken with an emotion that wasn't quite frustration.

"You're impossible," he said finally.

"You knew that when you married me."

A ghost of a smile broke through the tension, gone as quickly as it appeared. "Get your coat."

The drive to his father's estate was tense and silent, the city blurring past the windows in streaks of gold and black. Elena watched Damian's hands tighten on the armrest, his knuckles white, his jaw working like he was rehearsing a conversation he didn't want to have.

"You haven't spoken to your father since this morning," she said quietly.

"No."

"Are you going to be able to walk in there and be civil to him?"

Damian's laugh was humorless, sharp-edged. "I honestly don't know."

"For what it's worth," Elena said, "I understand. I don't know how I'm supposed to look at my own father the same way again either."

Something in his expression softened, just slightly. "We're a pair, aren't we? Both raised by men who buried the truth to protect themselves instead of us."

"At least we have that in common."

He reached over without looking, threading his fingers through hers, a small gesture that felt enormous given everything unraveling around them. "For what it's worth, I'm glad you're here. Even if I'd never admit that an hour ago."

"You basically just admitted it now."

"Don't get used to it."

The car pulled through iron gates onto a sprawling estate, security lights blazing across manicured grounds still crawling with police and private investigators. Damian's father stood on the front steps, older, silver-haired, his face etched with the same haunted exhaustion Elena's own father had worn the night before.

"Damian." The older man's voice cracked slightly. "Thank God. I didn't know who else to call."

"What exactly did they take?" Damian's voice was ice.

"Everything related to the Voss collapse. Financial records, private correspondence between myself and Elena's father, and—" His eyes flicked to Elena, something like grief passing across his weathered face. "Photographs. Old ones. From before the accident."

"Photographs of what?" Elena asked.

The older man's expression crumbled entirely, decades of carefully guarded secrets finally breaking loose.

"Of Sophia," he said quietly. "And of the woman who took her the night of the accident. The same woman, I believe, who's been sending your husband threats tonight."

Elena's blood ran cold. "Sophia died in the accident. What do you mean, the woman who took her?"

Damian's father's hands trembled as he reached into his jacket and produced a single photograph he'd apparently kept hidden, separate from whatever the intruders had stolen — an old, slightly faded image of a woman holding a small child who looked eerily, unmistakably like a younger version of Elena.

"Because, my dear," he said, voice breaking, "Sophia didn't die that night at all."