Chapter 3 - The Weight of the Truth
The room froze. Never in the history of Damian Cross's reign had anyone spoken to him with such raw, unfiltered aggression—least of all a seven-year-old child in a nightshirt.
"Sofia, no! Get back downstairs!" Elena cried out, reaching out to pull her daughter back, but Sofia refused to budge.
Damian stared at the little girl. Up close, looking down into her wide, furious eyes, a strange, electric jolt ran through his chest. He looked at her dark curls, the stubborn set of her jaw, and the striking, unmistakable hue of her hazel-green eyes. They were identical to a portrait that hung in his private study—a portrait of a woman who had vanished fifty-seven years ago.
"Little girl," Victor barked, stepping forward to grab her arm. "Get out of here before—"
"Touch her and you die, Victor," Damian interrupted smoothly, his voice dropping an octave. Victor froze, his hand hovering in mid-air, thoroughly unnerved by the sudden change in his boss's tone.
Damian knelt on one knee in front of Sofia, brushing aside his pristine suit jacket. "Why are you so sure your mother didn't take it, little girl? The watch was in her pocket."
"Because my mom's pockets are flimsy!" Sofia declared passionately, pointing her tiny finger at Victor. "And that watch is heavy! I know weights! I weigh everything! If Mama had a watch that big in her pants pocket, her trousers would sag on the left side by almost an inch! She walked in here straight! But he..." Sofia pointed directly at Victor Hale, "...he walked past my room earlier, and his right jacket pocket was dipping down real low!"
A murmur rippled through the twelve men at the table. Damian’s eyes narrowed as he slowly turned his gaze up toward Victor.
"Nonsense!" Victor stammered, a bead of sweat breaking out on his forehead. "The child is hallucinating! She's making up stories to save her thief of a mother!"
"Mama doesn't lie, and I don't guess!" Sofia snapped back. She unclasped her plastic kitchen scale and set it down on the onyx table with a heavy thud. "Put the watch on it! Go on! Put it!"
Damian, strangely fascinated, took the watch from Victor's hand and placed it gently on the cracked scale.
"Two hundred and forty grams!" Sofia announced loudly. She turned to Damian, her hazel eyes blazing. "If you put two hundred and forty grams in thin fabric, it pulls the thread down! Look at my mom's pocket! The pocket isn't stretched at all! But look at his coat!"
Damian’s gaze dropped to Victor's bespoke jacket. The inner lining of the right breast pocket showed a fresh, subtle tear—the kind made by a heavy, sharp-edged object being jammed into it quickly, then hastily transferred during the commotion.
Without a word, Damian stood up. He didn't look at Elena. He looked at Victor. "Victor. Take off your jacket."
"Damian, boss, you can't be serious—you're listening to a street child over your right-hand man?!" Victor backed away toward the door.
Before he could take three steps, Damian’s two main bodyguards stepped into his path, blocking the exit. Within seconds, they stripped Victor's jacket off. Tucked inside the secret inner pocket was a second gold item—a matching miniature key that belonged to the safe's secondary fail-safe mechanism, something only a high-level insider could have planted to frame an innocent server and cover a long-term embezzlement scheme.
"It seems," Damian said, his voice dropping into a lethal whisper, "that the thief was standing right beside me all night."
He gestured to the guards. "Take Victor to the lower hold. We will discuss his severance package later."
As Victor was dragged out, screaming apologies, the room returned to silence. But the tension had shifted entirely. Damian turned back to Elena, who was still weeping softly on the floor, clutching Sofia tight against her chest.
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Damian walked over to them. But instead of remaining standing, he dropped to both knees before the young mother and her child. His eyes weren't on Elena's tear-stained face. They were locked onto the tiny silver locket hanging around Sofia's neck—a cheap silver piece Elena had inherited from her late grandmother.
"Where," Damian whispered, his voice trembling for the first time in his adult life, "did you get that necklace?"
