I Married My Family's Destroyer

Elena had always thought Damian’s private office was the quietest room in the house, tonight, the silence felt deafening.

She stood behind Damian’s desk with one hand braced against the polished wood and stared at the folder lying open beneath the lamp, ELENA HARRINGTON.

A photograph was clipped inside. Her leaving her studio.

She remembered the cream coat she wore in it because she had complained for weeks that the sleeves were too long and still refused to return it.

Beneath it was another photograph, her stepping out of a restaurant with Clara. Another, her entering the Harrington Foundation building.

Dates were printed beneath each image.

Elena stared at the first one again then the date. It was taken four months before she met Damian. "No.”

Elena turned the page.

A schedule, her studio hours, foundation events, restaurants she frequented, the Pilates studio she had stopped attending more than a year ago, her preferred florist, her university, her assistant at the time, the names of several close friends, and the coffee shop two streets from her old apartment.

Elena's fingers went cold.

She flipped another page, then another. Each one stripped something ordinary from her life and returned it looking sinister.

Elena pushed away from the desk so quickly the chair rolled backward. Her hip struck the corner but she barely felt it. She hadn't come into Damian’s office looking for secrets that was the cruelest part. She had come looking for his passport.

They were supposed to leave for Lake Como in two days. Damian had texted her that afternoon because he couldn't remember whether he'd left it in the bedroom safe or his office.

She had mocked him.

You manage billions but can't manage one passport?

That had been three hours ago.

Elena looked around the office then her gaze returned to the desk. Her file wasn't the only one. Several others had been pulled from a compartment behind a panel she hadn't even known existed.

HARRINGTON HOLDINGS, RICHARD HARRINGTON.

Elena stared at it. The folder was thicker than hers.

She opened it, financial records, old newspaper articles, court filings, photographs, a picture of her father almost twenty years younger, leaving a courthouse surrounded by reporters.

Elena frowned. She had never seen it before.

Another name appeared repeatedly, Alexander Blackwood. She stopped.

Her eyes moved between the names. Richard Harrington, Alexander Blackwood then Blackwood Industries, fraud, embezzlement, bankruptcy, asset liquidation.

Her pulse began pounding harder.

Pieces of the failed Blackwood company had eventually been acquired by several businesses. One had later become part of Harrington Holdings.

Elena read that section twice then a third time. She didn't understand what it meant but she understood enough to know Damian had never told her any of it.

Damian hadn't developed a sudden interest in her family after marrying her, he had been studying them for years.

Elena moved around the desk. She should call him. The thought came and disappeared immediately because what would she say?

Hi, sweetheart. Did you know there's a file in your office documenting my movements before we met?

No, she needed to understand what she was looking at first.

A second compartment sat beneath the first.

Elena stared at it.

She should stop, she could close everything, put the files back and wait for Damian but...

Inside the second compartment were three black folders. The first contained names. Harrington executives, former employees, lawyers, accountants, people Elena knew and people she didn't.

Some had notes beneath their names, others had dates. One made her stop, Martin Keane.

Martin had worked with her father for almost twenty years. Six weeks ago, his housekeeper had found him dead in his study.

Suicide, that was what police believed.

Elena remembered her father standing at Martin's funeral, looking older than she had ever seen him.

Her eyes moved to the next page. Gerald Weiss, former Harrington financial adviser.

Twelve days ago, Gerald's car had gone through a barrier on a mountain road but he survived.

Elena's hand slowly lowered.

A chill traveled down her spine, no.

She closed the folder.

Another waited beneath it. She opened that one too.

Corporate structures. At first, the names meant nothing then she began recognizing events. A lender that had refused to refinance Harrington Holdings two months earlier, a company involved in the acquisition her father had spent almost a year negotiating before the deal collapsed without warning.

Elena followed arrows between entities. One company owned another and the company was controlled by an investment vehicle, a name she knew very well, BLACKWOOD CAPITAL.

Elena sat down. Her legs had stopped working.

For months, Harrington Holdings had been suffering one disaster after another. Her father had become convinced someone was doing it deliberately.

Elena had thought stress was making him paranoid. Until three weeks ago she had come home from dinner with her parents shaken. Damian had been in their bedroom removing his cuff links when she sat on the edge of the bed.

Dad thinks someone is targeting the company.

Damian had looked at her.

She remembered that now.

Someone is trying to destroy my family.

Damian had crossed the room, crouched in front of her, and taken both her hands. Look at me.

She had.

Whatever happens with Harrington, it won't touch you.

She had frowned.

That's not what I asked.

I know.

So can you help my father?

Damian had kissed her knuckles. Yes.

Elena's eyes filled. He had said yes but Harrington Holdings had continued bleeding.

She wiped at her eyes angrily. No. She wasn't crying until she knew what she was crying about.

Maybe there was an explanation, maybe Blackwood Capital had investments she didn't understand, maybe these companies operated independently, maybe she was building a monster from pieces that weren't connected.

Maybe.

Maybe.

Maybe.

At eleven seventeen, the front door unlocked.

Elena looked at the clock automatically, old habit.

She heard Damian enter. Keys placed in the bowl near the entrance, footsteps, then silence.

“Elena?”

She couldn't answer.

His footsteps came closer. “Elena?”

He appeared in the doorway. Dark suit, tie loosened, and coat folded over one arm. His eyes found her immediately.

Relief came first, then confusion, then his gaze moved to the desk, the open compartment, then the files.

He stopped.

Elena had known him for a year. Loved him for most of it, married him four months ago. She knew the smallest changes in his face, the slight tightening beside his mouth when irritated, the crease between his brows when worried, the way his eyes softened before he smiled at her. She had never seen this expression.

For one brief second, Damian looked afraid.

His coat slipped slowly from his hand onto the chair beside him. “Elena.”

Elena looked down at the photograph clipped inside her folder, her own face stared back at her. “When did you first know who I was?”