Chapter 10 - THE BOY SHE NEVER MET
Victor Kane looked very different without cameras around.
No expensive smile.
No polished real estate king.
Just a tired man in a black coat standing beneath stained concrete.
“You came alone.”
Shiomara looked toward the darkness.
“No, I didn’t.”
Victor laughed.
“Daniel has security three hundred feet away.”
“You expected otherwise?”
“No.”
He stepped closer.
For the first time, Shiomara saw the boy in the old photograph inside his face.
“You hate me,” Victor said.
“I don’t know you well enough to hate you.”
“You embarrassed me.”
“You tried to destroy my business.”
“You stepped into mine.”
Shiomara folded her arms.
“Why?”
Victor’s jaw moved.
“Why what?”
“Why me?”
His expression cracked.
“Because they got everything.”
“Who?”
“Daniel. Marcus. Maya.”
His voice rose.
“They got the perfect parents. The house. College. Connections. Money.”
“And you?”
“My father found me.”
“That sounds like a good thing.”
Victor laughed bitterly.
“No.”
Harold had found Elias and dragged him home.
Not out of love.
Out of fear that a scandal involving his homeless son would ruin his legal career.
Victor was sent to boarding school.
He was told never to speak about the bridge again.
“My father spent his life ashamed of me.”
Shiomara’s expression softened.
Victor hated that.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m still fourteen.”
“Part of you is.”
He stepped closer.
“You fed them.”
“I didn’t know you existed.”
“But they told everyone about you.”
Victor’s voice cracked.
“Do you know what Daniel said once? He said that the night you came was the night he realized good people existed.”
Shiomara said nothing.
“I was there the night before.”
Victor’s eyes burned.
“I was hungry too.”
Shiomara swallowed.
“I’m sorry.”
“That doesn’t change anything.”
“No.”
She stepped closer.
“But destroying them won’t feed that boy either.”
Victor stared at her.
For a moment, rage disappeared.
Then a car screeched behind them.
Daniel’s security shouted.
A gunshot cracked beneath the bridge.
Shiomara dropped.
Victor grabbed her and pulled her behind a pillar.
Another shot.
“Stay down!”
Daniel’s men rushed in.
A sedan sped away.
Victor stood frozen.
Shiomara stared at him.
“You saved me.”
Victor looked equally shocked.
Then his phone rang.
He answered.
His face went pale.
“Dad?”
Shiomara’s breath caught.
Harold Vance was on the other end.
May you like
And Victor’s first words were almost a whisper.
“You said nobody was supposed to get hurt.”
