Chapter 8 - The Nurse’s Confession
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“I was the nurse assigned to her delivery,” Naomi explained, pulling herself up to sit on the edge of a velvet armchair. “Elena was so weak. But she was determined. When Zuri was born, she was tiny, but she was breathing.”
Damon walked over to the bed, gently sitting beside his sleeping daughter. He reached out with a trembling hand and lightly brushed a curl from her forehead.
“Elena made me promise,” Naomi wept. “She grabbed my hand while she was bleeding out. She told me that Silas had paid the doctor. She said if Silas found out the baby survived, he would kill her to secure his place as your heir.”
“Why didn't she tell me?” Damon asked, a tear finally escaping his iron control. “Why didn't she come to me?”
“Because Silas convinced her that you were in on it,” Naomi revealed, the devastating truth hanging heavy in the room. “He forged emails. He made it look like you wanted her gone to finalize a merger with a rival family. She died believing the man she loved wanted her dead.”
Damon let out a guttural, agonizing sound. It was the sound of a king realizing his crown was forged in the blood of his queen. He buried his face in his hands, his broad shoulders shaking with a grief so profound it seemed to pull the oxygen from the room.
“The doctor pronounced her dead, and then he tried to take the baby,” Naomi said, her voice hardening with residual fear. “I knew he was going to dispose of her. So I took her. I smuggled Zuri out the back of the clinic in a laundry basket. I ran to a contact I had in the underworld to forge my new identity, and I disappeared.”
“Why come back here?” Vance asked quietly. “Why risk coming to the Ashford estate?”
“Because I ran out of money,” Naomi admitted softly. “The men who forged my papers were extorting me. I needed a safe place, and the only place Silas would never look for the missing nurse was right under his own nose, cleaning his brother’s floors.”
Damon slowly lowered his hands. The sorrow on his face had evaporated, replaced by a cold, calculating, and utterly terrifying rage.
“Silas poisoned my wife. He stole three years of my daughter’s life. And he made Elena die believing I was a monster.”
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Damon stood up. He looked at Vance.
“Lock down the estate. No one gets in. And tell the armory to prepare the tactical teams. We are going to war.”
