Chapter 8 - The Shadow of the Past
Though Damian had abandoned his dark empire, the dark empire had not forgotten him.
Three days after Damian’s arrival in Harbor Haven, a shadow moved into the quiet coastal town.
In a darkened room of a motel on the highway outside town, Victor Vance—the younger brother of Damian’s former head of security—sat before three computer monitors.
Victor was a high-ranking lieutenant in the Chicago syndicate who had grown bitter over Damian’s gradual dismantling of the family’s illegal operations over the past four years. The syndicate had lost billions because of Damian’s obsession with finding his dead wife.
Now, Victor had tracked Damian to Maine—and discovered the truth.
"He lied to the council," Victor whispered into a phone to a syndicate boss in New York. "His wife isn't dead. He has a five-year-old daughter. The bastard abandoned the family business to play happy father in Maine."
"Is the child protected?" the cold voice on the other end of the line asked.
"She’s at a local preschool. Lightweight security. Just two local guards."
"Damian Voss holds thirty percent of the offshore holding keys in his private vault," the boss commanded flatly. "Snatch the kid. Bring her to the docks in Portland. We force Voss to sign over the keys, and then we eliminate the whole bloodline once and for all."
"Consider it done," Victor smiled darkly.
The following afternoon, a heavy fog rolled in off the Atlantic Ocean, blanketing Harbor Haven in a thick, gray mist.
At 3:30 PM, as the school day ended, five-year-old Klara was standing in the fenced garden behind the school, holding her wooden sailboat, waiting for Elena to finish a phone call with a textbook vendor inside.
A black van pulled silently up to the rear service gate of the schoolyard.
Two masked men in heavy jackets stepped out, cutting the chain-link lock with bolt cutters in seconds. They moved swiftly through the fog toward the little girl.
"Hey, kid," one of the men growled, reaching out a heavy, gloved hand to grab Klara’s arm. "Come with us quiet—"
Before the man’s fingers could touch Klara’s jacket, a hand like a steel vise clamped around his wrist.
Damian Voss stepped out of the white fog like a demon rising from hell.
His eyes were cold, terrifying, and glowing with an unholy, feral violence. Without saying a word, Damian twisted the man’s arm back until the bone snapped with a sickening crack.
The gunman screamed, but Damian delivered a devastating knee to his chest, throwing him ten feet back into the wooden fence.
The second intruder pulled a suppressed pistol from his coat, but Damian was already moving. He closed the distance in a fraction of a second, grabbing the barrel of the gun, forcing it upward as a shot discharged harmlessly into the fog, and slammed his elbow into the attacker's throat, dropping him instantly to the damp grass.
Klara stood beside the sandbox, her eyes wide, clutching her wooden sailboat to her chest. She hadn't screamed. She had watched the tall man in the charcoal suit move like lightning to protect her.
Damian spun around, his heart pounding wildly, his body drenched in cold adrenaline. He dropped to his knees in front of Klara, checking her small arms and shoulders with frantic, trembling hands.
"Are you okay?" Damian gasped, his voice raw, his body shaking with terrifying fury. "Did they touch you? Did they hurt you?"
Klara looked at him—at his bleeding knuckles, at his wild, desperate eyes, and at the sheer, unyielding wall of protection he had built around her in three seconds.
She didn't run away. She stepped forward, reaching out a tiny, soft hand, and gently patted his bleeding cheek with her fingers.
"You're the man from the dark forest," Klara whispered softly.
Damian froze. Tears sprang to his eyes, cutting tracks through the dirt and sweat on his face. "Yes, baby... yes. I'm the man from the forest."
Klara offered him her wooden sailboat. "Did you find your way out?"
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Damian pulled his daughter into his arms, burying his face in her small shoulder, clutching her so tightly he could feel the fast, miraculous rhythm of her little heart beating against his chest.
"I found my way out the second I saw you," Damian sobbed into her hair.
