Chapter 1 - The SUV tore through Manhattan like the city had split open behind us.
I pressed one hand to my stomach and the other against the locked door, watching buildings smear into silver and black through the rain-streaked glass.
“Let me out,” I said.
No one answered.
“Let me out!”
The man beside me finally looked over. “Miss Carter, if we stop, you die.”
My throat closed.
Ahead, the driver swerved hard. A bullet punched through the rear window, spraying glass across the leather seats. I screamed as the man in black threw his body over mine.
“Down!”
The SUV lurched into an underground garage beneath a tower with no sign, no doorman, no warmth. Just cameras, steel doors, and men with guns who lowered their eyes when they saw me.
Then he appeared.
Adrian.
Not the man from the balcony. Not the stranger who had smiled at my bad jokes and kissed me like I was something rare.
This Adrian wore a black coat over a charcoal suit, his face carved from fury and sleeplessness.
His eyes dropped to my stomach.
For half a second, the monster vanished.
“Vivien,” he breathed.
I slapped him.
The sound cracked through the garage.
Every armed man froze.
“You knew?” I whispered. “You knew I was pregnant before I did?”
His jaw flexed. “I knew you might be in danger.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No,” he said quietly. “It isn’t.”
He led me upstairs to a penthouse wrapped in bulletproof glass, with the whole city glittering beneath us like a kingdom built on secrets.
A doctor examined me again while Adrian stood by the window, fists clenched at his sides.
“Three heartbeats,” the doctor confirmed. “All strong.”
The word strong broke something in me. I turned my face away before anyone could see the tears.
Adrian dismissed everyone.
When we were alone, he placed a folder on the table.
Inside were photographs of me leaving work, buying groceries, sleeping on the subway after double shifts.
“You had me watched.”
“I had you protected.”
“Stop calling cages protection.”
His eyes darkened. “My enemies cannot have children. I can. That makes you valuable to them.”
Then his phone buzzed.
He read the message.
For the first time, I saw fear touch Adrian Blackwood’s face.
I grabbed the phone before he could hide it.
The message was only five words.
THE GIRL IS NOT YOURS.
May you like
Below it was a photo of me at the clinic.
And standing behind me, smiling at the ultrasound screen, was my dead mother.
