Chapter 10 - The Threshold
The Paradise Valley estate was completely dark when Damian’s SUV crunched up the gravel driveway. The massive iron gates stood open, and the grand fountains in the courtyard were silent.
He didn't bother turning on the grand foyer chandeliers. He walked through the echoing, marble-floored hallways of the mansion that felt less like a home now and more like a mausoleum of his own making.
He headed straight to the guest wing.
The door to Fiona’s personal study was open. The desk was completely cleared of papers. The mahogany surface shone under the moonlight streaming through the tall windows.
On the center of the desk sat a single, small leather-bound notebook—the ledger.
Damian stepped into the room, his heart pounding against his ribs with the same raw panic he had felt standing outside a locked apartment door in Columbus twelve years ago. He walked over to the desk and picked up the notebook.
Tucked inside the cover was a handwritten note in Fiona’s neat, familiar script.
Damian,
You built a magnificent empire to make sure we never had to count loose change again. But a house is only a home when the people inside it are actually looking at each other.
I've gone back to the apartment on 4th Street in downtown Phoenix. It’s small, the plumbing rattles when the wind blows, and there’s no private elevator.
If you want to find me, you won't need a corporate jet or a driver.
You’ll just have to knock on the front door like everyone else.
— Fiona
Damian stood in the silent, empty room for a long moment, the small leather notebook clutched tightly in his hand. The weight of his success, his millions, his hotels, and his titles suddenly evaporated, leaving behind only the simple, undeniable truth of who he had been before the world got in the way.
He didn't call his driver. He didn't check his tablet.
May you like
He walked out of the study, closed the front door of the mansion behind him without locking it, and got into his car.
As he drove down the winding mountain road away from Paradise Valley toward the gritty, quiet grid of downtown Phoenix, the first gray light of dawn began to break over the desert horizon—not illuminating an empire, but lighting the road to where he should have been all along.
