The Devils Game

Chapter Four: The Heir

The gunshot shattered the silence.

For one frozen second, nobody moved.

Then Damon grabbed my arm.

"Down!"

He pulled me behind the wall just as another shot tore through the window.

Glass exploded across the hallway.

I barely noticed.

One thought had already consumed everything else.

Evangeline.

She was back at the estate.

Alone.

My mother caught my wrist.

"Aria, listen to me."

"She's at the house."

"I know."

"Then we have to go."

My mother's face tightened.

"That's exactly what they want."

I stared at her.

"Who are they?"

She looked toward the entrance.

"People who have been searching for your daughter since the night she was born."

Another gunshot echoed outside.

Damon's expression turned cold.

"How many?"

"I don't know."

"Then we're leaving."

My mother shook her head.

"No."

Damon stared at her.

"What?"

"There's another way out."

She hurried toward an old bookshelf and pulled one of the dusty books from its place.

A hidden mechanism clicked.

The entire shelf shifted.

Behind it was a narrow staircase descending into darkness.

I stared.

"You have got to be kidding me."

My mother didn't smile.

"Saint Orchard was never just a children's home."

Damon's eyes narrowed.

"What was it?"

My mother looked at me.

"A hiding place."

---

The staircase led to a basement that looked nothing like the abandoned building above.

Metal cabinets covered the walls.

Hundreds of files filled the shelves.

Photographs, bank records, newspaper clippings, passports, and handwritten notes covered a long wooden table.

It wasn't a basement.

It was an archive.

A secret history buried beneath a forgotten building.

I turned slowly.

"What is all this?"

My mother walked toward the table.

"Everything your father discovered."

Damon picked up a file.

"About the network?"

She nodded.

"The network has existed for decades."

I opened another folder.

Names stared back at me.

Politicians.

Businessmen.

Police officers.

Judges.

People whose faces I'd seen on television.

People everyone trusted.

My stomach twisted.

"How deep does this go?"

"Deeper than you can imagine."

I looked at my mother.

"And Dad knew?"

"He discovered enough to become dangerous."

"That's why he died."

She didn't answer.

I looked at Damon.

"You said you didn't kill him."

"I didn't."

"But you were there."

"Yes."

"Then tell me what happened."

Damon's jaw tightened.

"I went to confront him. We argued. He knew things about me. Things I couldn't allow him to expose."

"You threatened him."

"Yes."

"You attacked him."

His eyes dropped.

"Yes."

My voice became colder.

"And then?"

"I left him alive."

My mother laughed bitterly.

"That's what you tell yourself."

Damon looked at her.

"You weren't there."

"No."

She stepped closer.

"But I know what happened afterward."

"Then tell me."

She stared directly at me.

"Someone else entered the house."

The room went silent.

"Who?"

"We never found out."

My mother's eyes darkened.

"But whoever it was wanted your father dead."

A crash sounded upstairs.

All three of us froze.

Someone was moving through the building.

Damon immediately reached for his phone.

"We need to go."

My mother grabbed a blue folder from the table.

"Take this."

I looked at it.

"What is it?"

"Your father's final investigation."

I opened the folder.

The first page was covered in my father's handwriting.

One sentence stood out.

IF THEY COME FOR ARIA, DO NOT TRUST DAMON REED.

My breath caught.

I looked at Damon.

He had read it too.

For once, there was no arrogance in his face.

Only pain.

"You see?" my mother whispered.

Damon shook his head.

"He was wrong about me."

"Was he?"

"I didn't know what they were planning."

My mother narrowed her eyes.

"Then why did they fear you?"

"Because I was investigating them too."

I stared at him.

"You were?"

He looked at me.

"I've been trying to find them for years."

"Why?"

His voice lowered.

"Because they took something from me."

"What?"

He hesitated.

"My family."

Before I could ask what he meant, my phone rang.

Unknown number.

I answered.

"Hello?"

A child's voice whispered through the speaker.

"Mama?"

My heart stopped.

"Evangeline?"

Damon went completely still.

"Mama, where are you?"

"Baby, are you hurt?"

"No."

Her voice trembled.

"But I'm scared."

I closed my eyes.

"I'm coming for you."

A man's voice suddenly replaced hers.

"That's exactly what we want."

Damon stepped closer.

"Who are you?"

"Someone who knows what your daughter is."

My blood went cold.

"What does that mean?"

The man laughed softly.

"You really don't know."

Damon's face hardened.

"Let her go."

"Bring us the blue file."

My grip tightened around it.

"Where?"

"The old railway station."

"When?"

"One hour."

"And if we don't?"

Silence.

Then:

"You'll never hear your daughter's voice again."

The line went dead.

I stared at the phone.

My mother whispered:

"They found her."

Damon looked toward the hidden staircase.

"No."

My mother frowned.

"What?"

"They didn't find her."

He looked at me.

"Someone told them where she was."

A horrible silence followed.

Someone had helped them.

Someone inside the estate.

---

We raced back.

The drive felt endless.

I couldn't stop hearing Evangeline's voice.

Mama, I'm scared.

Damon drove like the road belonged to him.

"We'll get her back."

I stared ahead.

"You don't know that."

"I do."

"You can't promise that."

"I can promise you I'll do everything I can."

I looked at him.

"That's what you said six years ago."

He flinched.

"I know."

Neither of us spoke again.

When we reached the estate, the front doors were wide open.

Damon stopped.

I felt the blood drain from my face.

The house was silent.

Too silent.

We entered.

The foyer had been destroyed.

Photographs lay shattered across the floor.

Drawers had been ripped open.

Furniture overturned.

"Evangeline!"

My voice echoed through the house.

Nothing.

I ran upstairs.

Her bedroom was empty.

Her pink blanket lay on the floor.

Her favorite stuffed rabbit was beside it.

I picked it up.

"No."

Damon stood behind me.

His expression was unreadable.

Then I heard a faint sound downstairs.

A whimper.

We rushed toward it.

Barnaby crawled out from beneath the kitchen table.

He was trembling.

Something was caught around his collar.

A piece of pink fabric.

Evangeline's dress.

I stared at it.

"No..."

My knees buckled.

Damon caught me.

"Aria."

"She's gone."

"We're getting her back."

I pushed away from him.

"You don't understand."

"I do."

"No."

I looked at him through tears.

"She's my daughter."

His face broke.

"She's mine too."

For one moment, neither of us spoke.

The anger between us disappeared beneath something stronger.

Fear.

Fear for the same little girl.

My mother entered the kitchen.

Her face was pale.

"There is something you both need to know."

I turned.

"What?"

She looked at Damon.

Then at me.

"Evangeline wasn't taken because she's your daughter."

I frowned.

"Then why?"

My mother's voice trembled.

"Because of who her grandfather was."

I stared at her.

"What did my father have?"

"He discovered something."

"What?"

"Something that was never supposed to leave his possession."

Damon stepped closer.

"What exactly did he hide?"

My mother looked at the blue file in my hands.

"The key."

"The key to what?"

She looked directly at me.

"Everything."

Before I could ask another question, an engine roared outside.

Damon ran to the window.

A black SUV was speeding away from the estate.

And in the back seat...

A tiny pink figure.

"Evangeline!"

I ran toward the door.

Damon grabbed his keys.

"Aria, wait."

"No."

I turned toward him.

"I'm going after her."

"It's a trap."

"I know."

"You could be walking straight into an ambush."

"I know."

He stared at me.

I stepped closer.

"But six years ago, you made decisions for me."

His expression hardened.

"You decided I couldn't know about my daughter."

"I know."

"You decided what was best for me."

"I know."

"You don't get to do it again."

Silence.

Then I held up the blue file.

"They took our daughter."

I looked him directly in the eyes.

"So we're going to take her back."

Damon nodded.

No argument.

No command.

Just determination.

We climbed into the car.

The gates opened.

The SUV disappeared into the distance.

And for the first time since I'd met Damon Reed, we weren't enemies.

We were parents.

And someone had just made the biggest mistake of their life.

They had taken our daughter.

Now they were going to learn exactly what two desperate parents were capable of.

I looked down at the blue file sitting on my lap.

The answer to my father's greatest secret was somewhere inside it.

And whatever that secret was...

Someone was willing to kill for it.

The car accelerated into the darkness.

Neither of us noticed the figure standing at the estate gates.

Watching us leave.

A phone was raised to their ear.

"They took the bait."

A pause.

Then a quiet laugh.

"The game has finally begun."