Page 126 of When Hearts Surrender

I told myself I’d do whatever it took to break the curse before she got hurt again.

I’d do anything so that we could be together.

Nothingcould separate us.

When I returned, I ransacked the library after Belle was fast asleep. I searched for Grandfather Silas’s missing journal or some letter or book that may give me more information about the curse. I came up empty. Then last night, I moved on to the study, where I kept all the family records.

The lone lamp on my desk flickered on and off as I poured through genealogy records, trying to identify anything I’d missed before. But there was nothing other than rows and rows of names, dates of births, deaths, and marriages. All the women who didn’t die of old age had a cause of death listed next to their names—all seeming to be unfortunate events with no discernable pattern other than these women were in love with their husbands when they died, as cross-referenced with the related entries in the old journals.

“Fuck!” I brushed the records off the desk and buried my face in my hands. I felt so damn helpless, just like the little boy in front of the altar at his mother’s funeral.

I can’t give up. I have to save Belle. I have to find a way for us to be together.

A thought came to mind, and I picked up the phone and called my father, not caring it was close to midnight and he was probably asleep.

“Son, it’s late. What’s going on?” Dad sounded worried.

I took a deep breath and replied, “I need to break the damn curse, Dad. I want to see if there was anything that stood out to you when you looked into the curse before.”

The silence seemed deafening.

“You fell in love with Belle, didn’t you?”

A lump formed in my throat. “Yes,” I whispered, afraid the curse would hear me somehow. “She loves me back too. S-She’s the one forme, the person I can’t live without. I can’t just sit here and do nothing. I can’t let what happened to Sydney happen to her.”

“I was afraid of that after the gala. Even the blind could see the love between the two of you.”

“I need to save her, Dad. I-I…” I blew out a breath and closed my eyes, exhaustion weighing heavily on my eyelids.There has to be something we missed.

“I assume you’re going through the journals then?”

“Yes, the ones from the library. I just reviewed all the old letters and the genealogy records again. There’s nothing! And I still can’t find Great-Great-Great-Grandfather Silas’s missing journal from the 1860s.”

Dad sighed. “I did the same when I was falling in love with your mom. I tried to find the missing journal too. It never turned up. Did you review the autopsy records yet? I looked over the one for your grandmother and the ones before then were so brief they were practically useless, but I never examined the records of your mom and Sydney. I was too devastated to care by then.”

I froze and pulled out the last folder in the pile I took out earlier.

Autopsy records.

Flipping through them, I scanned the oldest records first, noting they were of no use. Then I got to the ones of Grandma, Mom, and Sydney, which were filled with medical jargon I couldn’t understand. But there was a note at the bottom of each one.

Detailed records on file at the coroner’s office.

“D-Dad, I need to go. Thanks for picking up.”

“Son, I hope you break the curse. There’s nothing I want more in the world than to see you happy and in love, and if your mom were here, s-she’d say the same.” His voice thickened, and he cleared his throat. “Regardless, I’m p-proud of you for trying. For facing your fears head on. You’re a braver man than me.”

I let out a ragged exhale, my eyes burning. “I had a good role modelwith you, Dad.”

We hung up, and I swiped opened my text messages to type a message to Elias.

Maxwell

Do you know a good medical examiner?

He responded almost right away.

Elias

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