Femme Fatale: The King's Deadly Temptress

Chapter 662  The Cabin

Their grandfather's cabin was one of their favorite places to visit when they were kids. It was far enough from Harbor City, but not too far to go back on the same day. It was also close to William's Cabin which was only fifteen minutes away. The cabin looked cozy and warm, built with walnut wood and oak wooden decorations with a wrap-around porch. It had five bedrooms, four bathrooms, a large living room, a modest dining area, and an office. There's a smaller building to its left that was used as storage.

Not far from the cabin was the lake where they went fishing when they were kids.

The cabin had been in the Park family for many years. Some of their grandfather's properties were either sold or handed over to his children, and this cabin was first passed on to Lawrence, and then to Damien. Damien couldn't remember the last time he went to this place. It felt like it had been such a long time. Ever since his father died, he didn't want to go there anymore. There were just too many memories that were painful to him, knowing that his father was no longer around. Eventually, he just decided he wouldn't go there again.

Apart from the regular monthly cleaning by the caretaker, no one really went there anymore.

"God, this place is so nostalgic," William muttered as they entered the cabin using Damien's keys. "It smells the same," Damien said. There were scents that you would associate with a place or a memory and this cabin had that warm, woodsy scent, and the pine trees that surrounded the cabin. He had loved coming to this cabin.

William looked around the living room with his hands on his waist. "So, what are we looking for?"

"I'm not sure."

"Maybe we can start with the bedrooms? Office?"

"Let's start with the office," suggested Damien.

For half an hour, they searched the office, not knowing what they would find. They rummaged through books, drawers, paintings, and cabinets. The search could even be useless. There might not be anything in there that would be helpful to them.

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But for some reason, Damien had this feeling that he couldn't shake off. It was as if he was in the right place—or maybe he was merely feeling at home after not being here for a long time.

"Bedrooms?" William probed.

Nodding, Damien decided there wasn't anything unusual in the office. So he followed his cousin to the second floor where the master suite and the guest bedrooms were located. Despite having many rooms to search, they didn't have to look for a long time. All the rooms were empty. There were pieces of furniture but the drawers and closets were all empty.

"Maybe I had it all wrong." Damien dropped to the bed of the last guest room and held his face in his hands. "It had been so many years. Whatever Dad was here for, it couldn't have been still here all these years, could it? Assuming he was even here in the first place."

"I don't know, man." William let out an exhausted sigh. He peered out of the window and saw the smaller building where they store logs for the fireplace, the boat, and just a whole bunch of other random stuff for the cabin. "We still have one place we haven't searched." He nodded toward it.

Defeated, Damien agreed to check out the place. If they still wouldn't find anything there, he would call it a night.

There were a lot more areas to search in the small building where it housed all the tools and knickknacks for all the seasons. And just like their search in the cabin, they came up empty-handed.

The two came out of the building, Damien locking the door behind him, and then they walked back to the car.

"Well, we tried," William said in an attempt to console the other.

"Yeah."

"Maybe Uncle Lawrence went somewhere else…or met someone." William shook his head. "I guess it's time to face my father, huh?"

Damien nodded, his mind still plagued with the thoughts of the cabin and why he was compelled to come here. The night of his father's accident, he remembered his father saying he needed to take care of something. What could that be? And where could he have gone? Keeping his stare at the cabin as he walked, he pressed the button to unlock his car. It beeped, and William opened the door to the passenger's side.

However, before William could get in, Damien suddenly called out, "Wait!"

"What?"

Instead of answering, Damien strode back to the cabin with William hot on his heels. He opened the door in a flash and went straight to the office.

"Damien, what is it?"

"Remember when we were five and we were playing hide and seek?" Damien opened the door to the office and looked around the floorboards.

"I…honestly don't remember anymore. That was a long time ago."

"I came in here and saw Dad storing something on the floor. If I can just remember which one it is." He began tapping the wooden floors with his foot. The memory in his head didn't give him the exact location, but he could sense it was somewhere around here. Wordlessly, William started doing the same.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

They keep doing so until Damien reached the right corner of the office near a tall bookshelf. The floor sounded different than the rest—like hollow or something.  "Do you hear that?"

"Open it." William was there in a second and the two of them knelt before the floorboard.

They tried pressing here and there, but it didn't do anything. Reaching into his side, William produced a pocket knife and handed it to Damien. The latter would worry about destroying the floor later. At the moment, he was desperate to open it—whether they would find something in there or not.

Damien pried the board through the cavity until the wood snapped and he was able to push the board upward, revealing a metal safe box hidden underneath it. They removed the rest of the floorboards that covered the safe. Damien's heart thrummed inside his chest as he found what he was hoping to see despite not knowing what to actually find inside—supposing they would be able to open the damn thing. They needed a code to unlock the dial combination safe.

"Now what?" William chuckled, thoroughly amused that they found a box that potentially held information, only it was locked. "Unless you know how to pick a safe like this, we need to figure out the code. Did your father tell you?"

Damien looked up to meet William's stare and shook his head. "Maybe Amelia or Felix can open this," he muttered under his breath, already knowing that would take time considering the two were guarding Deborah and Higgins. They didn't want to entrust the two to others.

"Or we can try to guess. How about birthdays?" William suggested.

Damien tried his father's birthdate, but it didn't open. He then tried his, their grandfather's, and Nana's. And the last attempt was Amelia's. None of them worked.

Frustrated, he slumped and sat on the floor with his back against the desk. William did the same on the other side, the open floor between them.

"I'm out of ideas." Damien ran his hands down his face, his eyes straying back to the safe. "Try Frederick's."

William whistled. "If Gramps chose the code and your father didn't change it, that would be possible. But it's a stretch." Even so, he reached out and entered his father's birthday. Still, it didn't open.

Damien rested his head against the desk, blinking, suddenly feeling very exhausted now. He rolled his head to the side and spoke lazily. "Might as well try your birthday while you're at it."

William threw his head back laughing. "That would be fucking hilarious."

"Just try it." He sighed.

"I'm telling you. It's not—"

Click.

"Holy shit." Damien sat up straight at the same time that William reacted: "No fucking way."

They stared at each other, their eyes widening as the seconds passed by. They had a thousand questions in their heads, mainly wondering why the code was William's birthday. Was that the original code chosen by their grandfather, or did Lawrence change it to that?

The two audibly swallowed. Damien pulled the door open and they rummaged through some papers: deeds and other properties they hadn't heard of that were owned by Lawrence. One of the files caught their eyes because it had a name of a laboratory on the heading.

"What's this?" Damien picked it up and carefully flattened the paper that was now yellowish from being old. Over his shoulder, William read the document with him.

"What the fuck?!" they cursed in unison.

William snatched the paper from Damien's hand and read the whole thing again as if the first time he did wasn't already enough. His eyes were so wide, and his face turned pale.

Meanwhile, Damien sat frozen, his haunted stare never leaving the other, his mouth on the floor. "William…" He didn't know what to say. The paper was a DNA paternity test result.

William turned his head, meeting Damien's gaze. And in a ghastly tone he had never used before, the words left his mouth, "I'm… I'm our grandfather's son?! Holy fucking shit!"