Chapter 7
Marcus’s mouth tightened.
“Because my father’s will names a blood heir as the only legitimate successor to the Vale empire.”
Evelyn felt the floor shift beneath her.
Leo looked from one adult to the other. “What’s a blood heir?”
Marcus’s face changed at the sound of his son’s voice. Something fierce and grieving passed over him.
Evelyn answered quickly. “A family thing. Not important.”
“It is important,” Marcus said.
Her glare could have cut glass. “Not to him.”
Marcus accepted the blow.
Then Lily, still in Evelyn’s arms, asked in a tiny voice, “Are you our daddy?”
No one moved.
Marcus looked at his daughter.
All the cruelty men feared in him vanished from his face so completely that Evelyn almost looked away.
“Yes,” he said. “I am.”
Lily studied him.
“You made Mama cry.”
The words struck harder than any accusation Evelyn could have made.
Marcus did not defend himself.
“Yes,” he said.
Leo frowned. “Did you say sorry?”
Marcus looked at Evelyn.
The fire cracked.
“No,” he said quietly. “Not enough.”
Evelyn’s throat tightened against her will.
Then Marcus lowered himself to one knee before the children. Slowly. Carefully. Like a man approaching wounded animals.
“I am sorry,” he said to them. “For not finding you sooner.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
That was the danger of Marcus Vale. Not his violence. Not his money. Not even his reach.
It was the way he could aim truth like a weapon and tenderness like a trap.
She opened her eyes.
“We leave in the morning.”
“No,” Marcus said.
The softness disappeared.
There he was.
The king returning to his throne.
Evelyn’s spine went rigid. “Excuse me?”
“You and the children stay here until I know who sent the men today.”
“You don’t get to decide that.”
“I do when my enemies are shooting at my children.”
“They are my children.”
His eyes burned. “They are ours.”
The word cracked through the room.
Ours.
For years, she had trained herself not to imagine it.
Marcus teaching Leo how to knot a tie. Marcus letting Lily sit on his desk while he worked. Marcus laughing quietly in bed with both babies asleep between them.
All the impossible lives she had refused to mourn.
“You lost the right to that word,” Evelyn said.
Marcus stood.
“No,” he said, voice low. “It was stolen from me.”
The library doors burst open before she could answer.
A guard entered, pale-faced. “Boss.”
Marcus did not look away from Evelyn. “What?”
“We found something in the SUV. Under the rear seat.”
Nico stepped forward. “What kind of something?”
The guard held out a small black device sealed in a plastic evidence bag.
A transmitter.
Evelyn’s heart slammed.
Marcus turned slowly toward Nico.
Nico’s face went blank with shock. “I checked the vehicle.”
“Then someone had access after you checked it,” Marcus said.
The guard swallowed. “There’s more.”
He handed Marcus a phone.
Marcus glanced at the screen.
The color left his face.
Evelyn knew then that whatever he saw was worse than a tracker.
He handed the phone to her.
On the screen was a photograph taken through the bookstore window earlier that week.
Evelyn reading to a circle of children.
Leo asleep on her lap.
Lily leaning against her shoulder.
A message sat below it.
Three little heirs are worth more than one dead wife.
Evelyn’s hand began to shake.
Then another message appeared.
This one came in live.
Tell Marcus I kept my promise. I gave Evelyn a reason to run once. Now I’ll give her a reason to come back.
A video loaded.
Evelyn touched play before Marcus could stop her.
The screen showed a woman seated in a dim room, blond hair falling over one shoulder, silver moon pendant at her throat.
Chloe smiled.
Not sweetly.
Not sadly.
Triumphantly.
“Hello, Evie,” she said. “You look tired.”
Evelyn could not breathe.
Chloe leaned closer to the camera.
“And Marcus,” she purred, “congratulations. The boy looks just like you.”
Marcus’s face became something carved from murder.
The video shifted.
A man appeared behind Chloe, half in shadow.
Old. Elegant. Familiar in a way Evelyn could not place until Marcus made a sound she had never heard from him before.
Not rage.
Horror.
The man stepped into the light.
He had Marcus’s eyes.
Older, colder, impossible.
Evelyn had seen his portrait once, hanging in the old Vale estate beneath black funeral ribbons.
Antonio Vale.
Marcus’s father.
The dead don.
Antonio smiled into the camera.
“Bring me my grandchildren,” he said, “or I will take them from both of you.”
The screen went black.
May you like
For one second, there was only the fire, the storm, and the sound of Lily beginning to cry.
Then every light in the mansion went out.
