Chapter 2 - The Ghost of the Underworld
The phone felt heavy and freezing in my hand, as if the device itself had been pulled from a block of ice.
My gaze remained frozen on the glowing screen, my eyes tracing every single detail of the image. It was a high-resolution, perfectly clear photograph taken inside the clinic exam room just minutes before the gunfire had erupted. There I was, lying on the table with my cream sweater pushed up, my face pale with shock as the monitor displayed the three tiny, fluttering shapes of the triplets.
But it wasn't my own image that made the blood in my veins completely turn to ice.
It was the figure standing directly behind the ultrasound machine, partially obscured by the shadows of the dimly lit room. A woman with silver-streaked hair, wearing a familiar faded green wool cardigan, her lips curved into a soft, knowing smile as she gazed down at the monitor.
"Mom..." The word left my throat as a broken, breathless gasp.
My knees gave out completely. If Adrian hadn't moved with the terrifying, lightning-fast reflexes of a predator, I would have crashed directly onto the hard marble floor. His powerful arms wrapped around my waist, lifting me effortlessly and carrying me over to the plush velvet sofa near the floor-to-ceiling windows.
"Vivien, breathe," Adrian commanded, his deep voice vibrating against my ear. "Look at me. Breathe."
"She's dead," I choked out, my fingers clawing into the expensive fabric of his suit jacket as another wave of sheer panic ripped through my chest. "I held her hand, Adrian. I watched the heart monitor flatline in the ICU eight months ago. I signed the cremation papers. I spent the last of my savings on a plain wooden urn. How is she standing there? How is she smiling?"
Adrian didn't answer immediately. He gently pried the phone from my white-knuckled grip, his storm-gray eyes scanning the message once more before he slid the device into his pocket. The tenderness he had shown just a second prior vanished completely, replaced by a cold, impenetrable mask of absolute ruthlessness.
"Marcus!" Adrian roared, his voice echoing like thunder through the massive, cavernous penthouse.
The heavy oak doors burst open instantly, and the man in the black suit who had dragged me out of the clinic stepped inside, his hand already resting on the holster beneath his arm. "Yes, Boss?"
"Bring me the security chief of the clinic," Adrian ordered, his jaw clenching so hard the muscle ticked violently. "I don't care if he's currently hiding in a police precinct or running for the border. Bring him to the lower levels of this building within the hour. And find out exactly who routed that specific cellular transmission to my personal encrypted line."
"Right away, Mr. Blackwood," Marcus replied, bowing his head before turning on his heel and vanishing out the door.
I pulled away from Adrian, my breath coming in short, ragged gasps as I pressed both of my hands firmly over my stomach. The three heartbeats inside me felt like tiny, ticking time bombs now. Every single variable of my life had been completely rewritten in the span of an afternoon. I wasn't just a broke waitress anymore; I was a pawn in a game I didn't understand, surrounded by men who treated violence like currency.
"Who sent that message, Adrian?" I demanded, my voice shaking but laced with a sudden, desperate anger. "And what does it mean by 'The girl is not yours'? If you think for one second that I was with someone else—"
"I know the babies are mine, Vivien," Adrian interrupted softly, his gaze dropping to my hands on my belly. For a fleeting moment, a flash of raw, possessive pride illuminated his dark eyes. "The night we met wasn't a coincidence for my enemies, but what happened between us on that balcony... that was real. My blood runs in those children. The text is a psychological strike. They are trying to destabilize me. They want me to doubt you, to doubt my own claim, so I make a mistake."
"And my mother?" My voice cracked, a single tear spilling over my eyelashes. "Is that a psychological strike too? A hologram? A lookalike?"
Adrian stood up slowly, walking over to the massive glass window that overlooked the rain-soaked skyline of Manhattan. The city lights reflected off his sharp profile, making him look less like a man and more like a dark god ruling over a kingdom of concrete and secrets.
"Your mother, Clara Carter, worked as a senior research analyst for the Blackwood syndicate twenty-five years ago," Adrian said, his voice deadly quiet. "Before you were born, Vivien. Before she fled to Queens and took a job at a discount pharmacy to hide from the underworld."
I stared at his back, my mind spinning out of control. "You're lying. She was just a regular woman. She worried about coupons and electric bills."
"She was a genius who stole a proprietary genetic sequence from my father's private vault," Adrian countered, turning around to face me. "A sequence that ensures the survival of the Blackwood lineage. My family has a genetic curse, Vivien. For three generations, no Blackwood has been able to father more than one child, and even then, the survival rate is abysmal. I am an only child. My father was an only child. But inside you... right now... are three perfectly healthy, thriving heirs."
He stepped closer, the sheer gravity of his presence pinning me to the sofa.
May you like
"Your mother didn't just hide from us, Vivien. She used herself as a test subject, and she passed that altered genetic legacy down to you. You are the only woman on earth capable of carrying my children to term. And the people who shot up that clinic today? They didn't want to kill you. They wanted to harvest what's inside you."
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