PART 2 The most feared mafia boss in Baltimore had driven away every doctor, nurse, and bodyguard who dared step into his room, and everyone inside Grayhaven House believed the locked door at the end of the east wing hid a monster
PART 2
For several seconds, no one moved.
Rain tapped against the tall windows, soft and steady, while Damian Volkov’s words remained suspended in the room.
“She can hear the second heartbeat.”
One of the guards shifted near the doorway. His name was Viktor, a broad-shouldered man with a scar along his jaw who rarely showed emotion. Now his face had gone strangely still.
“Sir,” he said carefully, “there is only one heartbeat.”
Damian’s gaze hardened.
“Do you think I don’t know that?”
The force in his voice cost him. His body folded forward, and a sharp breath escaped between his teeth.
Lila’s hand remained pressed against his chest.
She did not pull away.
Instead, she looked at me and tapped two fingers against her own wrist.
Once.
Then again.
A pause.
Then a quick, faint tap between them.
My stomach tightened.
I knelt beside the bed.
“What is it, sweetheart?”
Lila repeated the movement. A strong tap, another strong tap, and then a fluttering one in the middle.
“She feels something,” I whispered.
Damian looked down at her small hand beneath his.
“Not feels,” he said. “Listens.”
His choice of word unsettled me.
Lila had been born with severe hearing loss. The doctors had explained that she could hear certain sounds with her device, especially after years of therapy, but she experienced the world differently from most people. She noticed vibrations through floors, walls, furniture, and skin. Sometimes she knew the washing machine had stopped before I did. She could feel a truck approaching through the pavement beneath her boots. When music played loudly, she pressed her palm against the speaker and smiled as though the melody traveled through her fingers.
But Damian could not have known any of that.
“You need a doctor,” I said.
His expression changed at once.
“No.”
“Mr. Volkov—”
“No doctors.”
His hand tightened over Lila’s. Not enough to hurt her, but enough to reveal the fear beneath his anger.
Viktor stepped into the room.
“Sir, Dr. Mercer is still on the property. He refused to leave until—”
“I told Mercer to go home.”
“He is waiting in the downstairs library.”
Damian’s eyes flashed.
“Then have him removed.”
Lila suddenly pulled her hand from his chest.
She reached for her cloth rabbit and pressed its faded ear against Damian as if the toy were examining him. Then she frowned.
The sight was so ordinary, so innocent, that it made the tension in the room feel even stranger.
Damian stared at the rabbit.
“What is she doing?”
“Checking again,” I said.
Lila moved the rabbit slightly lower, toward the left side of his chest. Then she shook her head.
She placed it near his collarbone.
Her eyes widened.
She tapped the rabbit’s ear twice.
There.
Damian followed the movement.
The color vanished from his face.
Beneath the open collar of his black sleep shirt, just below his left collarbone, was a thin silver scar.
It was so faint I had not noticed it before.
His fingers moved toward it.
“What is that?” I asked.
“An old injury.”
“What kind of injury?”
His gaze lifted to mine.
“The kind that is none of your concern.”
The answer was sharp, but the strength behind it was fading.
Lila touched the scar with one finger.
Damian flinched.
Then his entire body stiffened.
A tremor passed through his shoulders, followed by a violent irregular shudder beneath his skin. His breath caught. One hand gripped the blanket while the other pressed hard against his ribs.
“Viktor,” I said, “get the doctor.”
Damian tried to speak, but no words came.
Viktor did not hesitate again. He turned and ran.
The second guard, Tomas, crossed the room and reached for Damian, but Damian forced out a warning.
“Don’t.”
“You’re going to fall.”
“I said don’t touch me.”
He tried to swing his legs over the side of the bed.
They failed him.
For one terrible moment, the most feared man in Baltimore looked less like a ruler and more like someone trapped inside a body that had stopped obeying him.
I caught his shoulder before he struck the bedpost.
His eyes met mine.
There was anger in them.
And humiliation.
But beneath both was something far more human.
Panic.
“You can be furious later,” I said. “Right now, breathe.”
No one had ever spoken to Damian Volkov like that.
Tomas stared at me as though I had stepped in front of a moving train.
Damian did too.
Then Lila placed her hand against his cheek.
His attention shifted instantly.
She inhaled slowly through her nose and exhaled through rounded lips. It was an exercise we practiced whenever she became overwhelmed.
Breathe with me.
Damian watched her.
She did it again.
In.
Out.
His breathing remained ragged, but after several attempts, he began to follow her rhythm.
The room changed.
The fear did not disappear, but it stopped growing.
By the time Viktor returned with Dr. Mercer, Damian was leaning against the pillows, pale and exhausted, while Lila sat beside him with her rabbit in her lap.
Dr. Mercer entered carrying a medical case.
He was in his late fifties, with gray hair, tired eyes, and the expression of a man who had spent many years telling powerful people what they did not wish to hear.
He stopped when he saw Lila.
“Who is the child?”
“My daughter,” I said.
“And why is she in the patient’s bed?”
Damian answered before I could.
“She stays.”
Dr. Mercer raised one eyebrow.
Only slightly.
Then he approached.
“I need to examine you.”
Damian looked toward the window.
“You have five minutes.”
“I will take as long as necessary.”
“You have four now.”
Dr. Mercer set down his case.
As he listened to Damian’s chest, Lila leaned toward me. I signed for her to stay quiet.
She nodded, though her eyes remained fixed on the doctor’s stethoscope.
Dr. Mercer moved the instrument from Damian’s chest to the area near his left collarbone.
His expression sharpened.
He listened again.
Then he pressed his fingers along the silver scar.
Damian recoiled.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing yet.”
“Then why does it hurt?”
Dr. Mercer did not answer immediately.
He opened his case and removed a small portable monitor. After attaching adhesive leads to Damian’s chest, he watched the screen.
A line jumped across it in uneven peaks.
The doctor’s mouth tightened.
“What?” Damian demanded.
“You are experiencing premature beats.”
“Explain it without hiding behind medical language.”
“Your heart is firing an extra electrical impulse between normal contractions. It creates the sensation of a second rhythm.”
I looked at Lila.
She was watching the monitor as if it had confirmed something she already knew.
“Can that be caused by poison?” Viktor asked.
“Yes,” Dr. Mercer said. “It can also be caused by damaged tissue, severe stress, infection, certain medications, or an electrical disturbance.”
Damian’s fingers moved again toward the scar.
“And that?”
The doctor glanced at him.
“You told me it came from shrapnel.”
“It did.”
“Who removed it?”
“A surgeon in Prague.”
“What was his name?”
Damian’s eyes narrowed.
“That was eleven years ago.”
“You remember the names of men who owed you five dollars fifteen years ago.”
No one in the room reacted, but I felt the guards tense.
Dr. Mercer continued.
“You remember every detail that might protect you. Yet whenever I ask about this scar, your answers change.”
Damian turned his face away.
“It was a long time ago.”
The doctor touched the skin beside the scar again.
A faint vibration moved under his fingertips.
He froze.
Then he pressed harder.
“Do you feel that?”
“I feel you irritating me.”
Dr. Mercer looked toward Viktor.
“Bring me a strong magnet.”
Viktor stared at him.
“A magnet?”
“From the workshop, the kitchen, anywhere. And call the imaging clinic. Tell them to prepare the portable ultrasound.”
Damian’s voice became cold.
“No clinic.”
“The equipment will come here.”
“No outsiders.”
“Then continue dying in private,” Dr. Mercer replied.
The silence that followed was so complete I could hear the rainwater sliding down the glass.
Damian’s expression darkened.
Dr. Mercer did not lower his eyes.
At last Damian said, “Portable equipment only. Two technicians. Viktor searches them before they enter.”
The doctor nodded.
“That will do.”
As Viktor left, Damian looked at me.
“You should take your daughter downstairs.”
Lila immediately shook her head.
He frowned.
“You don’t even know what I said.”
She did not need to.
She had read the dismissal in his face.
Lila climbed off the bed, but instead of leaving, she dragged a small upholstered chair closer and sat beside him.
Damian stared.
“She is disobedient.”
“She gets that from her mother.”
A faint sound escaped Tomas.
It might have been a cough. It might have been a laugh he was trying to bury.
Damian turned toward him.
Tomas became expressionless.
I should have taken Lila and left. Every instinct told me we had already crossed too many boundaries.
I was an employee who cleaned fireplaces, polished silver, and changed sheets. I was not a nurse. I was not a confidante. I certainly was not someone who belonged in the private bedroom of Damian Volkov.
But when I reached for Lila, she looked up at me and signed one word.
Scared.
I thought she meant herself.
Then she pointed toward Damian.
He had not understood the sign, but he understood that she was speaking about him.
“What did she say?”
I hesitated.
“She said you’re scared.”
Tomas turned his face toward the door.
Dr. Mercer became very interested in his medical case.
Damian looked at Lila for a long moment.
Then he said, “She is observant.”
It was not a denial.
Viktor returned with a round black magnet from the estate workshop. Dr. Mercer wrapped it in a cloth and moved it slowly toward Damian’s scar.
The moment it came within a few inches, Damian sucked in a breath.
The skin beneath his collarbone shifted.
Not much.
But enough.
I saw it.
So did everyone else.
Something beneath the scar had responded.
Dr. Mercer withdrew the magnet.
“Do that again,” Damian said.
“I don’t think that would be wise.”
“Do it.”
The doctor repeated the movement.
Once again, the tissue beneath Damian’s skin gave a faint twitch toward the magnet.
Lila pressed both hands over her rabbit’s ears.
My mouth went dry.
“There is metal under the skin,” Dr. Mercer said.
“The shrapnel,” Damian replied.
“No. Shrapnel does not usually vibrate in a regular electrical pattern.”
Damian looked at the monitor. An extra peak appeared between two normal beats.
Then another.
His voice dropped.
“What does?”
“I don’t know yet.”
The portable ultrasound arrived forty minutes later.
During the wait, the east wing filled with restrained activity. Men spoke in whispers over radios. Curtains were closed. The two technicians were searched, questioned, and escorted upstairs beneath the watch of four guards.
Lila refused to leave.
I finally convinced her to sit in the adjoining dressing room with Tomas, but she kept the door open so she could see me.
Damian watched every movement in the room while Dr. Mercer prepared the equipment.
“You trust no one,” I said quietly.
He gave me a humorless smile.
“Trust is an expensive habit.”
“You trusted someone once.”
His smile vanished.
“That was the mistake.”
The technician spread clear gel over the scar and placed the ultrasound probe against Damian’s skin. Gray shapes moved across the small monitor.
Dr. Mercer leaned closer.
The technician adjusted the depth.
A dark oval appeared beneath the tissue.
Inside it was a thin, bright object.
It was no larger than the last joint of my little finger.
One end appeared connected to a fine wire extending downward.
Dr. Mercer’s face became grave.
“That is not surgical debris.”
Damian did not blink.
“What is it?”
“It appears to be a device.”
“What kind?”
“I cannot tell from this image.”
“Is it controlling my heart?”
“Possibly interfering with it.”
“Can you remove it?”
“Not in this room.”
Damian’s gaze turned toward Viktor.
“Lock down the house.”
Viktor nodded and reached for his radio.
Dr. Mercer caught his arm.
“That will not help your patient.”
“It will help us find whoever put that inside him.”
“And if the device is remotely activated, trapping everyone inside may trap the person controlling it with us.”
Every guard in the room became alert.
Damian remained perfectly still.
“Remotely activated,” he repeated.
“It may not be. I am telling you what I do not know.”
One of the technicians looked uneasy.
“Doctor, we should transfer him to a hospital.”
Damian’s answer came immediately.
“No.”
“You need advanced imaging and a surgical team.”
“No hospital.”
“Mr. Volkov—”
“No.”
The technician looked at Dr. Mercer, but the doctor only sighed.
“Then we bring the team here.”
Viktor stepped closer to Damian.
“Who had access to you eleven years ago?”
“Half of Eastern Europe.”
“Who treated the wound?”
“I told you. A surgeon.”
“Where?”
Damian’s expression shifted.
Not confusion.
Resistance.
Dr. Mercer noticed.
“So you do remember.”
Damian closed his eyes.
For several seconds, only the monitor spoke, marking each unsteady beat with a soft electronic tone.
Then he said, “It was not in Prague.”
“Where was it?”
“A private house outside Vienna.”
“Who owned it?”
Damian opened his eyes again.
“My sister.”
No one spoke.
I knew little about Damian’s family. The household staff rarely discussed him, and when they did, every story ended in rumor. Some said he had grown up in Russia. Others said Ukraine, Serbia, or Romania. Some believed he had no family. Others claimed he had buried all of them.
Dr. Mercer removed his gloves.
“You never told me you had a sister.”
“I had one.”
The past tense settled heavily over the room.
“What was her name?” I asked.
Damian looked at me as though he had forgotten I was there.
“Elena.”
In the dressing room, Lila shifted in her chair.
The floor creaked beneath her yellow boots.
Damian’s attention moved to the open doorway.
“Elena was deaf,” he said.
I felt something cold move through me.
“How deaf?”
“Completely, by the time she was six.”
He stared toward Lila.
“She used to touch the piano when I played. She said she could feel when I made a mistake.”
For the first time, his voice held no command.
No anger.
Only memory.
“What happened to her?” I asked.
His jaw tightened.
“She died.”
Lila rose from the chair.
She walked slowly back into the bedroom.
This time, no one tried to stop her.
She stood beside Damian and looked up at him. Then she held out her faded rabbit.
Damian regarded it uncertainly.
“She wants you to hold it,” I explained.
“I do not need a toy.”
Lila continued holding it out.
Damian glanced around the room. Armed men, medical equipment, locked doors, and rain-dark windows surrounded him.
Then, with visible reluctance, he accepted the rabbit.
It looked absurd in his large hand.
It also looked strangely right.
“What was she like?” I asked.
His thumb moved over one of the rabbit’s worn ears.
“Stubborn.”
Lila smiled as if she understood.
“Curious,” he continued. “She entered every room she was forbidden to enter.”
I looked toward the forbidden door.
Damian did too.
Something softened in his expression.
Only for a moment.
Then Viktor’s radio crackled.
A voice announced that the east wing had been secured.
Damian handed the rabbit back to Lila.
“Find every person who worked in Elena’s house during the final month of her life,” he ordered. “Doctors, staff, drivers, visitors.”
Viktor lowered the radio.
“That was eleven years ago.”
“I know how long ago it was.”
“Some records may be gone.”
“Then find the people who destroyed them.”
Dr. Mercer stepped between them.
“Before you begin investigating the past, we must keep you alive in the present.”
Damian looked at him.
“What do you need?”
“Blood samples. A full toxicology analysis. Images of the device from multiple angles. And permission to speak openly.”
“You already do.”
“No. I speak carefully because every time I mention your condition, you threaten to dismiss me.”
“I have never threatened you.”
“You fired me three times yesterday.”
“And yet you are still here.”
“That is because your household keeps forgetting to escort me out.”
For the first time, a real flicker of amusement appeared in Damian’s eyes.
It faded quickly.
Dr. Mercer’s voice became gentler.
“The wine may not have been poisoned.”
Damian’s expression sharpened.
“The symptoms began after I drank it.”
“That does not prove the wine caused them. This device may be releasing something into your bloodstream in response to a signal, a magnetic field, or even changes in your heart rate.”
“Why now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why wait eleven years?”
“I don’t know that either.”
Damian’s patience thinned.
“You have said that too many times today.”
“Because honest uncertainty is safer than a confident lie.”
Something passed between the two men.
A history of arguments, perhaps, but also a fragile form of trust neither would admit.
Damian leaned back.
“Take the blood.”
While Dr. Mercer worked, I took Lila downstairs.
The house felt different now.
Everyone had heard something, though no one knew exactly what. Staff members paused when we passed. Their eyes moved from my face to Lila’s yellow boots.
In the kitchen, Mrs. Ellison, the housekeeper, caught my arm.
“What happened upstairs?”
“Mr. Volkov became ill.”
“He was already ill.”
“He became worse.”
Her gaze dropped to Lila.
“I told you not to bring her here.”
“I had nowhere else.”
“And now she has been inside his room.”
“She wandered in.”
Mrs. Ellison’s mouth tightened.
“Children do not wander into locked rooms.”
“The door was open.”
That silenced her.
She looked toward the ceiling, as though she could see through it into the east wing.
“That door is never open.”
“I know.”
“Who opened it?”
“I thought Mr. Volkov had.”
Her expression told me how unlikely that was.
Lila tugged my sleeve.
She pointed toward the pantry.
I assumed she wanted a snack. I gave her an apple and guided her to the small table near the kitchen window.
But she shook her head.
She pointed again.
Not toward the pantry itself.
Toward the narrow service corridor beside it.
“What is it?”
She signed, Lady.
“What lady?”
Blue.
I crouched in front of her.
“You saw a lady in blue?”
Lila nodded.
“Today?”
Another nod.
“Where?”
She pointed upward.
My skin prickled.
“In the east wing?”
Yes.
“When?”
Lila held up several fingers, struggled, then pointed toward the clock and mimed me carrying laundry.
While I had been working.
Before she entered Damian’s room.
“What was the lady doing?”
Lila touched her own chest near the collarbone.
Then she made a twisting motion, as though turning a small key.
I stared at her.
“Did she touch Mr. Volkov?”
Lila shook her head.
“Did she go inside his room?”
No.
She pointed toward the wall.
Then she flattened her palm against it.
The service corridor ran behind several main rooms, allowing servants to move through the house unseen. I had used it many times, but the passage near the east wing had supposedly been sealed years ago.
Mrs. Ellison had been listening.
“There is no access from the service corridor to Mr. Volkov’s room,” she said.
“Lila saw someone.”
“Your daughter may be confused.”
Lila read the doubt in her face.
Her brows drew together.
She climbed down from the chair, took my hand, and pulled me toward the corridor.
“Lila, wait.”
She was already walking.
Mrs. Ellison followed us.
The service passage was dim and narrow, with plain wooden floors that contrasted sharply with the marble halls used by the family and guests. Small doors led to storage rooms, linen closets, and staircases hidden behind the walls.
Lila moved with certainty.
At the far end of the passage, she stopped before a tall cabinet filled with folded tablecloths.
She pointed behind it.
Mrs. Ellison shook her head.
“There is nothing there.”
Together, we moved the cabinet.
Dust streaked the floor beneath it, except for one clean curved line.
The cabinet had been moved recently.
Behind it was a narrow door painted the same gray as the wall.
Mrs. Ellison’s face changed.
“I have worked here for nine years,” she whispered. “I have never seen that.”
There was no handle.
Only a small circular indentation at shoulder height.
Lila touched it.
From somewhere inside the wall came a faint click.
The door opened half an inch.
I pulled Lila behind me.
Mrs. Ellison pushed the hidden door wider.
Cold air drifted through the gap.
Beyond it was a cramped staircase leading upward into darkness.
We should have called the guards immediately.
Instead, I looked at Mrs. Ellison.
She looked at me.
Then Lila slipped between us and placed one yellow boot on the first step.
“No,” we both whispered.
She stopped.
I lifted her into my arms.
“We call Viktor.”
Mrs. Ellison reached for the wall telephone, but before she could lift the receiver, footsteps sounded above us.
Someone was descending.
Slowly.
Mrs. Ellison gripped my arm.
I backed away from the opening with Lila pressed against my chest.
A shadow moved across the upper steps.
Then Tomas appeared.
He froze when he saw us.
For a moment, no one spoke.
“What are you doing here?” Mrs. Ellison demanded.
Tomas looked from the hidden door to Lila.
His face revealed nothing.
“This passage is restricted.”
“You came from Mr. Volkov’s room,” I said.
“I came from the security station.”
“Through a secret staircase?”
His gaze hardened.
“Move away from the door.”
Lila buried her face against my shoulder.
I felt her body tremble.
Tomas noticed.
His expression softened slightly.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Then explain,” I said.
“I cannot.”
“Was there a woman here?”
He became still.
Mrs. Ellison inhaled sharply.
“That means yes.”
Tomas stepped out of the passage and pulled the hidden door closed behind him.
“You need to forget you found this.”
I almost laughed from disbelief.
“My daughter saw someone near Mr. Volkov’s room. He has an unknown device beneath his skin, and now you appear through a concealed staircase and tell us to forget it?”
His eyes moved toward the kitchen.
Voices drifted from the far side of the house.
“You do not understand what you are involved in.”
“Then help me understand.”
“I am trying to keep you safe.”
“By lying?”
“By asking you to walk away.”
Lila lifted her head.
She stared at Tomas for several seconds.
Then she pointed to his right hand.
A faint blue stain marked the side of his thumb.
The same deep blue as the fabric dye used on the uniforms worn by Grayhaven’s private medical staff.
Tomas quickly curled his fingers.
My heart began to pound.
“The woman in blue,” I said. “Who is she?”
He looked toward the hidden door.
Before he could answer, Viktor’s voice came from behind us.
“Tomas.”
Every muscle in Tomas’s body tightened.
Viktor stood at the entrance of the service corridor with two guards behind him.
His gaze moved to the displaced cabinet, the hidden doorway, and the blue stain on Tomas’s hand.
“Step away from them,” Viktor said.
Tomas did not move.
“Tomas.”
“I was going to tell him.”
“When?”
“When I knew the truth.”
“You were told to report any activity in the sealed passages.”
“They were not sealed.”
Viktor’s eyes narrowed.
“What?”
“They were designed to appear sealed. Someone has been using them for years.”
Mrs. Ellison covered her mouth.
Viktor approached slowly.
“Who?”
Tomas looked at Lila.
“The woman the child saw.”
“Name her.”
“I don’t know her real name.”
Viktor’s hand moved toward the weapon beneath his coat, but he did not draw it.
“What name did she give you?”
Tomas hesitated.
“Anna.”
The name meant nothing to me.
But from Viktor’s expression, it meant something to him.
“That is impossible,” he said.
“What is?” I asked.
Neither man answered.
Then Dr. Mercer called from the main hallway.
“Viktor!”
His voice was urgent.
We all turned.
The doctor appeared at the far end of the corridor, breathless and pale.
“The toxicology screen found something.”
Viktor’s attention snapped toward him.
“What?”
“A compound in Damian’s blood. A synthetic cardiac stimulant combined with a sedative. The two substances are fighting each other.”
“Can you treat it?”
“I can stabilize him, but that is not the worst part.”
Dr. Mercer held up a transparent evidence pouch.
Inside it was a small glass vial.
“We found this beneath the floorboard beside his bed.”
Tomas stared at it.
The vial contained a trace of blue liquid.
The same shade that marked his thumb.
Viktor turned on him.
Tomas raised both hands.
“I did not put that there.”
“Then why is it on your skin?”
“Because I found another vial in the passage.”
“Where is it?”
“I gave it to Anna.”
Viktor moved so quickly that Mrs. Ellison gasped.
He seized Tomas by the front of his jacket and drove him against the wall.
“You met her?”
“She came to me three weeks ago.”
“Why?”
“She said she had information about Elena.”
At the sound of Damian’s sister’s name, everyone fell silent.
Viktor released Tomas slowly.
“What information?”
“That Elena may not have died in the fire.”
Dr. Mercer’s face changed.
“What fire?”
Tomas looked at him.
“The house outside Vienna burned eleven years ago. Damian was found injured near the road. Elena was believed to be inside.”
“Believed?” I repeated.
“No body was ever identified.”
Footsteps sounded from the main hall.
Damian stood there.
He had pulled on a dark robe over his sleep clothes. One hand gripped the doorframe for support. His face was colorless, but his eyes were fully awake.
Behind him, a medical lead still trailed from his chest.
No one had heard him approach.
“What did you say?” he asked.
Tomas looked stricken.
“Sir, you should be in bed.”
“What did you say about Elena?”
Viktor stepped toward him.
“You need to sit down.”
Damian ignored him.
His gaze remained locked on Tomas.
“Tell me.”
Tomas swallowed.
“A woman contacted me. She knew details about the Vienna house. The hidden treatment room. The piano in the west salon. The silver music box Elena kept beneath her bed.”
Damian’s fingers tightened around the doorframe.
“Those details could have been stolen.”
“She also knew what Elena called you when you were children.”
The air seemed to leave the corridor.
Damian’s voice became barely audible.
“What did she call me?”
Tomas answered in Russian.
I did not understand the word.
Damian did.
His eyes closed.
For one second, his face seemed to break apart beneath the weight of it.
When he opened them again, the ruthless composure had returned, but it was thinner than before.
“Where is this woman?”
“I don’t know.”
“You met her today.”
“I met her in the passage. She said the device had become unstable. She came to stop the signal.”
“Did she?”
“She tried.”
Damian touched the scar beneath his collarbone.
“Why would Elena put this inside me?”
Tomas shook his head.
“She said Elena did not.”
“Then who did?”
“She would not tell me.”
Damian took one unsteady step forward.
Lila slid out of my arms before I could stop her.
She crossed the corridor and stood in front of him.
He looked down.
She reached for his hand.
For a moment, he resisted.
Then his fingers closed around hers.
Lila tilted her head, studying his face.
After a few seconds, she signed something.
Damian looked at me.
“What did she say?”
I watched Lila repeat the sign.
“She says the blue lady was crying.”
His expression shifted.
Lila added another sign.
“And she says the lady looked like you.”
Damian went perfectly still.
Viktor’s radio crackled at his shoulder.
A guard’s voice came through, distorted by static.
“We found someone in the old chapel.”
Viktor lifted the radio.
“Male or female?”
“Female. Mid-thirties, possibly older. Blue medical coat. She is unarmed.”
Damian’s grip tightened around Lila’s hand.
“Bring her here.”
The guard hesitated.
“Sir, there is something else.”
“What?”
“She has a photograph.”
“What photograph?”
“Of you. Taken at the Vienna house.”
Damian’s face revealed nothing.
But his pulse jumped visibly in his throat.
The radio crackled again.
“And, sir… the woman says her name is Elena Volkov.”
No one moved.
No one breathed.
Damian stared into the distance as if the walls of Grayhaven House had opened onto a room buried eleven years in the past.
Then Lila tugged his hand.
She was not looking toward the radio.
She was looking at the hidden doorway behind the cabinet.
Her eyes widened.
Slowly, she raised one finger to her lips.
Someone was still inside the wall.
And from beyond the sealed door came the faint, unmistakable vibration of another heartbeat.
