Chapter 7 - WHAT REMAINS AFTER POWER
Isabelle survived.
The bullet passed cleanly through her shoulder.
Damian visited her in the hospital.
She looked small beneath the white sheets.
“I suppose this is where you forgive me,” she said.
“No.”
She nodded.
“Fair.”
“But I understand you.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“That’s worse.”
“Probably.”
She looked toward the window.
“I did love you.”
“I know.”
“I almost told you.”
“I know.”
“I kept thinking one more day.”
Damian sat.
“One more day becomes a lifetime if you’re not careful.”
She smiled sadly.
“What happens now?”
“You testify.”
“And after?”
“You build whatever life the truth leaves you.”
She looked at him.
“With Elena?”
Damian said nothing.
Isabelle laughed softly.
“You look different when she walks into a room.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“It means everything.”
Damian left without answering.
The following months stripped him of almost everything.
Casinos closed.
Properties were seized.
Associates disappeared.
Politicians publicly claimed they had barely known him.
Men who once begged for his attention suddenly forgot his number.
Damian cooperated.
He testified.
He paid fines.
He surrendered assets.
He admitted what he had done and what he had allowed others to do in his name.
His lawyers negotiated a sentence involving supervised release, restitution and years of restrictions, largely because his evidence dismantled a network far larger than prosecutors had imagined and because several of the most serious accusations against him could not be substantiated.
But the forty-room estate was gone.
The armored cars were gone.
The men waiting outside every door were gone.
One rainy afternoon, Damian walked out of the courthouse carrying everything he still owned in a cardboard box.
Victor waited across the street.
Beside him stood Elena.
And Sophie.
Sophie ran.
“Mr. Damian!”
She slammed into him.
His box fell.
Papers scattered across the sidewalk.
Damian laughed.
Not the controlled half-smile Elena had seen before.
A real laugh.
He lifted Sophie.
“You got heavy.”
“You got poor.”
Elena gasped.
“Sophie!”
Victor turned away, shoulders shaking.
Damian laughed harder.
“Yes,” he said. “I did.”
Sophie considered that.
“Do you still have cake?”
“No.”
“That’s bad.”
Elena walked closer.
“You okay?”
Damian looked at the cardboard box.
Then at her.
“I think so.”
“Where are you staying?”
“An apartment.”
“How many rooms?”
“Two.”
Sophie looked horrified.
“Where do the servants sleep?”
“We don’t have servants.”
She stared at her mother.
“Mommy, he needs us.”
Elena’s cheeks turned pink.
Damian’s expression softened.
“Yes,” he said quietly.
May you like
“I think I might.”
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