Chapter 2 - The Woman Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
“Tell me I'm wrong.”
Claire didn't answer.
They were alone in Keller's office.
Adrian had ordered everyone else out, including Dominic.
Especially Dominic.
Sophie slept in the adjoining examination room under a nurse's supervision.
Rain crawled down the windows.
Adrian placed the photograph on the desk between them.
“Tell me Sophie isn't mine.”
Claire sat opposite him, fingers locked tightly together.
“I can't.”
Three words.
That was all it took.
Adrian walked to the window.
He had imagined Claire alive thousands of times.
Sometimes he found her married.
Sometimes she had forgotten him.
In the cruelest versions, she had simply chosen another life.
Never this.
“How old?”
“Eight.”
“When's her birthday?”
“November nineteenth.”
Adrian calculated automatically.
His eyes closed.
Claire didn't need to explain.
“When did you know?”
“Two weeks after I disappeared.”
He turned.
“You knew I had a daughter for eight years.”
“Yes.”
The word struck harder than any bullet ever had.
“And you decided I didn't deserve to know.”
“I decided she deserved to live.”
Adrian crossed the room so quickly Claire flinched.
He stopped immediately.
That tiny movement hurt worse than the answer.
She was afraid of him now.
Once, she had fallen asleep with her head on his chest while armed men guarded the floor below.
“What did they tell you?”
Claire looked at the door toward Sophie.
“Your father found out about us.”
Adrian's expression changed.
Vittorio Moretti had been dead six years.
Death had not made him easier to remember.
“He knew already.”
“He knew we were together. He didn't know I was pregnant.”
“You just said you found out afterward.”
“I did. He knew before I did.”
That made no sense.
Claire continued.
“Someone had access to my medical records. I had bloodwork done because I kept getting dizzy. The pregnancy showed up.”
“My father?”
“He came to my apartment.”
Adrian's hands curled.
“He told me a Moretti heir wasn't a child. It was leverage. He said if I stayed, Sophie would spend her entire life with armed guards and enemies calculating what she was worth.”
“He threatened you.”
“He showed me photographs.”
“Of what?”
“My sister leaving work. My mother buying groceries. You walking into Belladonna House.”
Claire's voice weakened.
“He said accidents happened to people who confused love with belonging.”
Adrian remembered his father using almost those exact words about another man's wife.
Cold traveled down his spine.
“He arranged your disappearance?”
“I thought he did.”
“You thought?”
Claire nodded.
“Someone helped me. Someone inside your organization.”
“Who?”
“I never knew his name.”
Adrian stared at her.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“He contacted me through disposable phones. He knew your father's schedule. Security rotations. Bank accounts. He arranged the car, the blood, everything.”
“And you've trusted this mystery man for eight years?”
“For the first six months. Then he disappeared.”
Adrian leaned against the desk.
“Why come back now?”
“I didn't.”
Claire reached into her jacket.
She removed a folded sheet of paper.
A photograph had been printed on it.
Sophie leaving school.
Taken from across the street.
Underneath were coordinates.
Pier 19.
Adrian felt something ugly awaken inside him.
“They found you.”
“Three weeks ago.”
“Why didn't you call me?”
“I didn't know if calling you was exactly what they wanted.”
“You should have called.”
“I spent eight years being told that getting near you would kill my daughter.”
“Our daughter.”
Claire looked at him.
The correction hung between them.
“Our daughter,” she repeated softly.
Adrian turned away.
He couldn't deal with the way those words felt.
Not yet.
A knock interrupted them.
Dominic entered.
“Got something.”
Adrian followed him into the hallway.
“The SUV was stolen this morning. Cameras caught it entering downtown at eight fifty-three.”
“Occupants?”
“Two.”
Dominic showed him a tablet.
Blurry traffic footage.
Driver invisible.
Passenger wearing a baseball cap.
Adrian zoomed in.
Nothing useful.
“Claire's sedan?”
“Tracker underneath.”
Claire appeared behind them.
“What?”
Dominic held up a photograph.
A magnetic GPS unit.
“Professional hardware.”
“How long?”
“Can't tell yet.”
Adrian looked at Claire.
“Who knew you were coming to Calder?”
“Nobody.”
“Hotel?”
“I hadn't checked in.”
“Phone?”
“New.”
“Car?”
“Rental from the airport.”
Dominic's expression tightened.
“They weren't following her from somewhere else.”
Adrian understood.
“They were waiting.”
Which meant someone knew she would arrive before she arrived.
Someone with access to information that should have been impossible to obtain.
Adrian turned to Dominic.
“Who knew I'd be at Belladonna tonight?”
Dominic hesitated.
“You always eat there Thursdays.”
“No. I canceled dinner with the Halston people at six thirty and told you I'd eat downstairs instead.”
Dominic's face changed.
Only six people had received that update.
Adrian.
Dominic.
Three senior captains.
And Adrian's uncle, Marcus Moretti.
Claire saw his expression.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Don't do that.”
“Do what?”
“Become the man who decides everyone else gets only half the truth.”
It irritated him because she was right.
“There may be someone inside my organization feeding them information.”
Claire went pale.
“That means they know where we are.”
“No. Keller's clinic isn't on our regular network.”
Dominic's phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
Then looked at Adrian.
“Boss.”
Something in his tone silenced the hallway.
“What?”
“We found the sedan that attacked them.”
“Where?”
“Pier 19.”
Claire stepped closer.
“And?”
Dominic hesitated.
“There's a body inside.”
---
The dead man was named Evan Cole.
Thirty-four.
Private investigator.
No criminal record.
Adrian stood inside an abandoned warehouse at Pier 19 while rain rattled the roof.
Cole had been shot once.
Clean.
Professional.
But the interesting part wasn't the body.
It was the envelope taped beneath the driver's seat.
Adrian opened it wearing gloves.
Inside were photographs.
Claire.
Sophie.
Belladonna House.
Adrian's estate.
Dominic's apartment.
Marcus Moretti leaving church.
One photograph stopped him.
It showed Sophie at approximately four years old.
Which meant the surveillance hadn't begun three weeks ago.
Someone had been watching her for years.
Claire stared at it.
“Oh God.”
Adrian turned the photograph over.
A date.
Four years earlier.
“You didn't know?”
“No.”
For once, he believed her immediately.
Dominic searched the envelope.
“There's something else.”
A hotel key card.
Room 814.
The Calder Grand.
Adrian's men reached the hotel eleven minutes later.
Room 814 was empty.
No luggage.
No fingerprints that mattered.
Only a laptop sitting open on the desk.
Its screen displayed a live security feed.
Keller's clinic.
Adrian's blood went cold.
“Call Keller.”
Dominic already was.
No answer.
Adrian ran.
---
The clinic doors were open when they arrived.
One guard lay unconscious near the elevator.
Another had blood running from his nose.
Adrian drew his pistol.
“Claire stays behind.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Your daughter is in there.”
“Exactly.”
There was no time to argue.
They moved down the corridor.
“Keller!”
A nurse emerged.
“She's okay!”
Adrian reached Sophie's room.
The girl was sitting on the bed.
Dr. Keller stood beside her.
Alive.
Adrian lowered his weapon.
Then he saw the object on Sophie's lap.
A white box.
“Where did that come from?”
Sophie pointed toward the doorway.
“A man brought it.”
“What man?”
“He had gray hair.”
Adrian and Claire exchanged a look.
“Did he say anything?”
Sophie nodded.
“He said it was a birthday present my dad should've given me.”
Adrian approached the box.
Inside was a silver bracelet.
Small enough for a child.
The Moretti family crest was engraved on the clasp.
Adrian recognized it instantly.
His mother had owned one exactly like it.
She had been buried wearing it.
Underneath the bracelet was a note.
Adrian unfolded it.
One sentence.
May you like
ASK MARCUS WHO ORDERED CLAIRE VALE'S DEATH.
---
