Chapter 10 - A Heartbeat No One Expected
Before midnight, Cassian took Adeline back to Dr. Patel.
He said it was routine.
Adeline knew better.
“You’re worried you won’t come back.”
Cassian stood beside the examination table.
“No.”
“Your eyebrow moved.”
He looked offended.
“That is your tell.”
“I don’t have one.”
“You do now.”
She reached for his hand.
The ultrasound monitor flickered.
Then the heartbeat filled the room again.
Fast.
Steady.
Alive.
Cassian stared.
Nina smiled.
“Everything looks good.”
Adeline exhaled.
Cassian did not.
He remained focused on the screen.
After the doctor left, Adeline said, “You don’t have to go tonight.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No. You choose to.”
“Lucien has a doctor.”
“We can involve police.”
Cassian looked at her.
“That would expose thirty years of crimes involving my family.”
“Maybe they should be exposed.”
He stared.
Most people would never dare say it.
Adeline continued.
“If you want our child to inherit something better than fear, maybe you have to stop protecting the structure that created it.”
Cassian looked toward the monitor.
“Our child.”
It was the first time he had said it aloud.
Adeline’s expression softened.
“Yes.”
Cassian crouched in front of her.
“I don’t know how to do this.”
“What?”
“Any of it.”
She smiled.
“Neither do I.”
“I know how to protect territory.”
“Babies rarely respect territory.”
“I know how to make people follow instructions.”
She laughed.
“That skill is going to fail spectacularly.”
He almost smiled.
Then she became serious.
“Come home.”
Cassian touched her cheek.
“I will.”
At Warehouse 17, midnight arrived with freezing rain.
Cassian entered alone.
At least visibly.
Gabriel approached from the river side.
Ezra monitored communications from a separate vehicle.
The warehouse appeared empty.
Then floodlights came on.
Dr. Grant sat tied to a chair.
A man stepped from behind a container.
Late sixties.
Gray hair.
Elegant coat.
Black stone ring.
Lucien Raldi.
Cassian saw his father’s jaw in the man’s face.
“You look like Vittorio,” Lucien said.
“So I’m told.”
“You inherited his arrogance.”
“And apparently his inconvenient fertility.”
Lucien smiled.
“So she is pregnant.”
Cassian gave nothing away.
“You killed two doctors.”
“They became liabilities.”
“You threatened my wife.”
“I threatened an outcome.”
Cassian’s expression hardened.
Lucien continued.
“Children destroy rational men.”
“You would know?”
The smile disappeared.
Lucien had no children.
That fact suddenly mattered.
Cassian said, “You spent thirty years trying to control a succession you were never going to inherit.”
“I built your family’s empire.”
“You helped.”
“I built it.”
“And my father received the name.”
“Exactly.”
Bitterness remained fresh after decades.
Cassian understood him then.
Lucien did not want money.
He wanted history rewritten.
He wanted everyone to admit Vittorio had received what Lucien believed belonged to him.
“My child changes nothing,” Cassian said.
“It changes everything.”
Lucien stepped closer.
“With no heir, your death divides the organization. Gabriel appears. I guide him. The old families accept Raldi blood while I control the hand beneath it.”
Behind the container, Gabriel listened.
His face became cold.
Lucien continued.
“But a child born inside your marriage becomes undisputed continuity.”
“So you falsified my diagnosis.”
“With Ezra Sr.”
“You killed Henry Whitmore.”
“Ezra Sr. did.”
“And my father?”
Lucien smiled.
“We both did.”
Cassian’s eyes changed.
From the shadows, Gabriel stepped out.
“Thank you.”
Lucien froze.
Gabriel held up a recorder.
“For finally saying it.”
Men emerged around the warehouse.
Not gunmen.
Federal agents.
Adeline had been right.
Cassian had changed the plan.
For the first time in his life, he had invited law enforcement into family business.
Lucien stared.
“You.”
Cassian said nothing.
Lucien backed toward Dr. Grant.
An agent shouted.
Lucien grabbed the doctor.
Chaos erupted.
But Cassian did not move toward Lucien.
He moved toward Grant.
Gabriel intercepted his uncle.
Within seconds, agents surrounded them.
Lucien was arrested.
Alive.
That mattered.
Cassian wanted answers more than revenge.
As Lucien was escorted away, he looked at Cassian.
“You think this ends because I’m gone?”
“No.”
“You have no idea what kind of father you’ll become.”
Cassian stepped closer.
“That makes two of us.”
Then Lucien smiled.
“One question.”
Cassian waited.
“Did Adeline tell you what happened during the missing hours at Lake Forest?”
Cassian’s face changed.
Lucien saw it.
“She didn’t.”
“What are you talking about?”
Lucien laughed quietly.
“Ask her why she was really drugged.”
Cassian watched him being taken away.
Gabriel approached.
“He’s trying to divide you.”
“Probably.”
“But?”
Cassian looked toward the rain.
“But I’m going to ask.”
He returned home at three in the morning.
Adeline was awake.
Sitting in the kitchen.
Tea untouched.
She looked at him.
“You came back.”
Cassian removed his coat.
“I said I would.”
She stood and hugged him.
For a second he remained still.
Then his arms closed around her.
No contract had prepared either of them for that.
After a long time, Cassian whispered, “Lucien said you know why you were drugged.”
Adeline became rigid.
He felt it.
She pulled away.
“I remembered something tonight.”
Cassian waited.
“The water didn’t make me unconscious immediately.”
“What do you remember?”
“A conversation.”
“With who?”
Adeline’s eyes filled with fear.
“Rosalind.”
Cassian stared.
May you like
“She was at Lake Forest that night.”
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