Because of the Red Dress, Damian Stopped Talking, and a Few Minutes Later His Gaze Revealed Fear for the First Time

I had taken three steps into Damian Cross’s mansion when the words I heard from his phone froze my blood: “If you do not find the girl tonight, you will lose everyone.”

Damian stood on the forty-seventh floor above Boston Harbor, watching the city lights. He held a phone in one hand and a heavy crystal glass in the other. For the first time in two years, I saw his fingers trembling slightly.

Then he looked at me.

And fell silent.

The red silk dress that an elderly saleswoman on Newbury Street had chosen for me suddenly seemed like the worst decision. The dress had a high collar and long sleeves, but it followed my body so closely that it concealed nothing from my usual green medical uniform.

Damian slowly lowered the phone.

“Who gave you permission to look like this?”

“You told me to dress formally, Mr. Cross.”

“I meant a black dress.”

“Black did not suit me.”

Something warm flashed in his eyes for a moment, but immediately disappeared.

I had worked in his private clinic for two years. Officially, wealthy businessmen were treated there. In reality, at night they brought in men whose expensive shirts were soaked with blood, and everyone acted as though the bullet had accidentally ended up in the street.

I did not ask questions. I stitched wounds, counted pulses, and kept silent.

Damian said my name only when he urgently needed something.

“You will be beside me today,” he told me.

“There is already a medical team at the hotel.”

“I know.”

“Then why did you bring me?”

He took a black jacket and headed toward the door.

“Because in a room, the person who notices the most is the one who is looking for nothing.”

Twenty minutes later we entered the ballroom of the Harbor Crown Hotel. There were five hundred guests there: politicians, bankers, construction magnates, and several men whose ribs I had removed bullets from six months earlier.

Damian’s hand lightly pressed against my back. His touch was so unexpected that my breath caught.

“To the left, by the bar,” I whispered. “The man touches his inner pocket every twenty seconds.”

“I noticed.”

“The woman standing by the orchestra does not meet Congressman Hale’s eyes.”

“I noticed that too.”

“Two men came in together by the window, but they are not speaking to each other. They are checking the exits.”

This time Damian turned his attention away from the room and looked at me.

“Anything else?”

That was when I saw the waiter.

He was carrying a champagne tray, but his shoes did not look like a waiter’s. His right hand was not supporting the tray. Near his wrist, the edge of a tattoo was visible—the same mark the wounded man had had six months earlier.

My fingers seized Damian’s sleeve.

“Do not take that glass.”

He did not look at me, only kept his smile.

“Are you sure?”

“I treated that man. He was loyal to Mercer.”

The waiter came toward us. Damian reached toward the glass, but at that moment someone shouted his name from far away. He turned his head. The waiter placed the tray on the table.

And I noticed a small red mark under the rim of one of the glasses.

Exactly the glass that stood in front of me.

For the first time Damian looked at me not as an employee, but as a person who might be lost that same night.

“Do not touch it,” he told me quietly.

Then he looked toward the waiter and touched the device in his ear.

“North corridor. Now.”

The ballroom doors closed silently. The waiter disappeared. I could still feel the fabric of his sleeve in my hand when Damian’s head of security placed a small black folder on the table and told me:

“Ms. Bennett, this belongs to you…”

Damian did not touch the folder. First he looked at the head of security, then at me.

“Who gave you this?”

“They found it in the corridor,” the man replied. “Your name is inside.”

Cold poured into my stomach.

“Many people have my name,” I said, though I could barely hear my own voice.

Damian opened the folder. Inside there was only one photograph: a young woman standing beside his father, Alister Cross. The woman had my eyes.

On the back of the photograph was written: “Ask who her mother was.”

“My mother was Elena Bennett,” I said. “She died twelve years ago.”

Damian slowly raised his head.

“That is what you were told.”

“What does that mean?”

At that moment his phone lit up. An unknown number appeared on the screen.

“Answer it,” I said.

“No.”

“Maybe they know who I am.”

“That is exactly why you must not answer.”

The call ended. Immediately a message arrived: “If you want the truth, go to the old clinic. Alone.”

Damian looked at the screen and his face changed.

“Which old clinic?” I asked.

He answered me not with words, but by stepping between me and the door.

Then a second photograph opened on the phone. In it my mother was there—but this time the woman looked alive, and in her hand she held exactly the same small silver medical watch that I wore every day…

The photograph displayed on Damian’s phone was so clear that I even recognized the small scar beside my mother’s left eyebrow. She had the same scar in the only photograph from my childhood that remained with me.

“When was this photograph taken?” I asked.

“Three days ago,” the head of security answered.

Damian froze.

“You be quiet, Cole.”

“She has to know the truth,” I said. “Is my mother alive?”

Damian could not answer. Just then the ballroom door opened and a middle-aged woman entered. She held a brown travel bag, and a white streak showed in her hair.

I recognized her immediately.

My knees gave way.

“Mother?”

The woman’s lips tightened. She put the bag on the floor and took one step toward me.

“Maria, you should not have come here.”

“You were dead for twelve years.”

“I know.”

“You knew you were alive and still left me?”

Damian stepped between us.

“Elena, who found you?”

My mother looked at him, and hatred flashed in her eyes.

“Your father.”

It seemed as though every sound in the room died.

Elena took a sealed envelope from the bag.

“Alister took a DNA sample after you were born. I did not know. Ten years ago Mercer found me and told me that he knew the truth about the girl.”

“What girl?” Damian asked.

My mother looked directly at me.

“Maria, you are Alister Cross’s daughter.”

The sound of blood rang in my ears.

Damian stepped back. The envelope fell from his hand, but Cole picked it up and opened it. Inside was a laboratory report.

“Paternal connection confirmed,” Cole read. “The probability of matching is ninety-nine point nine percent.”

Damian lowered his eyes.

“That is why they brought you here,” he said. “Mercer wanted us to see you alive.”

“Why?”

My mother answered.

“Because Alister left in your name everything he could not entrust to anyone. His companies, harbor shares, and the main document. If you appeared, the old agreement would collapse.”

“And why did you not tell me?”

My mother reached out her hand, but I stepped back.

“Because your father’s people tried to kill you. I hid you to save you.”

Damian took another sheet from the envelope. Only one sentence was written on it: “If Elena has appeared, it means the first plan has failed.”

At that moment his phone rang. Damian answered.

A calm man’s voice came from the other side.

“Cross, now you know who the girl is. But your sister is no longer alone. Her mother is staying with me.”

Damian slowly lowered the phone.

My mother covered her face with her hand.

“This is impossible. I am here.”

A photo message arrived on the phone. In it, instead of my mother, another woman stood—the same face, the same scar.

And on the back was written: “The real Elena is still with us…”