Chapter 350: Ten Thousand Reasons
he word immediately put Damien on edge.
A liability
Considering everything he had learned about Viktor, Darnien knew exactly what happened to
people the man considered liabilities.
They were silenced, discarded, or made to disappear.
“What the hell happened?”
Ken’s expression remained serious as he turned his attention back to the documents spread
across the desk.
“Based on my investigation, Janice Torres knows nothing about the truth behind the accident, and
she knows nothing about the Volkovs.”
Ken reached for the remote again and pressed a button.
The same wall where Damien had watched the truth about the accident unfold only minutes earlier
lit up once more. This time, however, there was no moving footage.
A still photograph appeared on the screen.
Damien immediately recognized Janice, although she looked younger. She stood outside the
entrance of the apartment building where Maya and Jaime used to live, speaking to a tall,
unfamiliar man dressed in dark clothing.
Ken pressed another button.
A second photograph appeared from a different angle.
Then another.
The images captured the same encounter in sequence. Janice speaking with the man near the
entrance. The two moving farther to the side of the building. The man handing her what appeared to be a business card. Janice looking down at it before turning her attention back to him.
“A month after Maya and Jaime moved into that building, Viktor sent someone to approach her with an offer,” Ken explained. “She was told that a distant relative wanted someone to quietly watch over the children but preferred not to become personally involved in their lives.”
Ken paused.
“They made it sound like some sort of test. If Maya and Jaime proved themselves responsible and
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Chapter 350 Ten Thousand Reasona
worthy, they would eventually inherit a substantial amount of money from this supposed relative
Until then, Janice was simply supposed to be a good neighbor, stay close to them, and report back
how they were doing.”
Damien stared at the images on the wall and let out a sharp, humorless scoff.
“And she fucking believed that?” His lip curled into a sneer. “What the hell is this, some kind of fucking movie? A mysterious rich relative secretly testing two orphaned kids before handing them a fortune? Who the fuck believes something that ridiculous?”
Ken gave a small shrug.
“Apparently, she did. And she had ten thousand reasons every month not to question it too closely.”
Damien’s eyes narrowed.
“Janice was already struggling financially herself,” Ken continued. “She had retired from working as a home–care aide and was living on a modest pension. What little savings she had accumulated over the years had already taken a significant hit because of her daughter.”
He pressed another button.
The image on the wall changed to a mug shot of a woman whose appearance immediately caught Damien’s attention.
Her face was gaunt and hollow, with sunken cheeks, sallow skin, and dark circles beneath
bloodshot, heavy–lidded eyes. Deep lines around her mouth and forehead made her appear decades older, while her thin, unkempt hair and worn features spoke of years of substance abuse and neglect.
“This is Janice’s daughter,” Ken said. “She’s only forty–one. She lives overseas, works as a bartender at a local pub, and has spent most of her adult life getting into trouble with the law.”
He gestured toward the records on the screen.
“Drug possession, domestic assault, disorderly conduct, impaired driving, to name a few. She has no children and has already been through four failed marriages.”
Ken clicked to the next image, revealing financial records.
“More importantly, she developed a serious gambling problem and accumulated substantial debt.”
Damien’s expression tightened.
“Janice had been dipping into her own savings to help her daughter and sending her money whenever she could,” Ken continued. “So when someone offered her ten thousand dollars a month for something that sounded relatively harmless, it was difficult to refuse.”
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Damien stared at the financial records as the pieces fell into place.
“So she wasn’t chosen at random. Viktor deliberately found someone financially vulnerable enough
that ten thousand dollars a month would be almost impossible to refuse.”
“Yes, but that’s where Viktor miscalculated,” Ken continued.
“What he never accounted for was that somewhere along the way, it stopped being just a job to
her. Janice became genuinely attached to Maya and Jaime. Whatever reason she originally had for
entering their lives, the affection she developed for them over the years was real.”
Damien’s brows drew together as the realization hit him.
“And that made her a liability,” he muttered.
“Exactly,” Ken confirmed. “Viktor is a heartless man. Genuine human attachment isn’t something
he considers when he decides to use innocent people as pieces in his games. He expected Janice
to care about the money, not the people he was paying her to watch.”
The realization did little to ease the anger burning through Damien.
He understood what Ken was telling him.
Maya and Jaime had never spoken about Janice with anything but genuine affection and
gratitude. And on the few occasions Damien had seen the woman himself, even if only from a
distance, nothing about her behavior toward the siblings had ever struck him as threatening or
insincere.
Their affection for her was real.
And apparently, her affection for them was just as genuine.
But none of that changed the fact that Viktor Volkov had deliberately placed her in their lives, and
she had been on his payroll for years.
That alone was enough for every protective instinct in Damien to reject the idea of simply dismissing her as harmless.
“But something changed recently,” Ken said, pulling him from his thoughts.
“Take another look at those transactions.”
He pointed toward the folder on the table.
Damien reached for the documents again and scanned the dates.
For nearly four years, ten thousand dollars had been transferred every month without fail.
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pter 50 Ten Thousand Reasons
Then the payments had abruptly stopped.
His eyes settled on the date of the final transaction, and his stomach tightened.
+25 Paws
It was around the same time Maya had been released from the hospital after the kidnapping.
Damien looked up sharply. “The last payment was only a few months ago. Did Janice tell them she
wanted out?”
“That, I don’t know,” Ken admitted. “So far, I haven’t found anything explaining why Viktor suddenly stopped paying her. But I did find this.”
Ken pressed another button, and the financial records disappeared, replaced by a grainy still frame
from another surveillance recording.
“This came from a surveillance camera at the bus stop across the street from the housing
‘complex.”
He pressed play, and the still image came to life. Damien’s eyes moved across the screen before
settling on the timestamp in the corner.
A little after two in the morning.
Then he noticed the date.
It was the day after he had seen Maya and Jaime standing at that very same bus stop and offered
them a ride to the hospital.
Something about the timing immediately unsettled him as a troubling possibility crossed his mind.
Could it be?
Damien pushed the thought aside and focused on the footage again.
Because if his suspicion was right, he wasn’t sure he could forgive himself for being so careless.
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