Chapter 2 - ADRIAN
I hit the floor before I understood what was happening.
Stellan didn’t.
He stood with Fern against his chest and drew a pistol from behind his desk in one clean motion.
Another gunshot cracked downstairs.
Then shouting.
“Stay behind the desk,” he ordered.
“My baby—”
“She’s safer with me.”
“You’re holding a gun!”
“So is whoever just entered my house.”
That shut me up.
He pressed a button beneath the desk.
A section of the wall opened.
A hidden steel door.
Of course Stellan Cross had a panic room.
“Inside.”
“I’m not going anywhere without Fern.”
His eyes flashed.
“Selene.”
“No.”
Boots pounded somewhere beyond the office.
Closer.
Stellan came toward me, put Fern into my arms, then shoved us behind the steel wall.
“Lock it after me.”
“What about you?”
He checked his weapon.
“You wanted to know if I’m Adrian.”
My blood went cold.
“Yes.”
He looked directly into my eyes.
“I am.”
Then he shut the door.
I heard the lock engage.
I stood frozen in darkness with Fern waking against my shoulder.
Adrian.
Two years earlier, I had been working a catering job at a charity gala at the Whitmore Hotel.
I remembered a masked stranger stumbling into a service stairwell with blood on his shirt.
I should have screamed.
Instead, I helped him.
He told me someone had tried to kill him.
I thought he was rich.
I never thought he was Stellan Cross.
Later, a storm shut down half the city.
We ended up trapped in a hotel room meant for a donor who never arrived.
He had been gentle.
Funny, even.
Sad in a way I understood.
At three in the morning, he said, “If I tell you my real name, you’ll be in danger.”
So I didn’t ask.
At six, I woke alone.
There was a note beside me.
Forgive me. I had to disappear before they found you.
Six weeks later, I found out I was pregnant.
Outside the panic room, something crashed.
I held Fern tighter.
“Mommy’s here.”
Gunfire erupted.
Three shots.
Silence.
Then one more.
Fern cried.
I covered her ears.
Minutes passed.
Or hours.
Finally, three knocks struck the steel door.
“Selene.”
Stellan.
I didn’t move.
“Open it.”
“How do I know it’s you?”
A pause.
Then:
“You burned eggs the morning after the gala because you were trying to make me breakfast with a hotel coffee maker.”
My eyes filled.
Only Adrian knew that.
I opened the door.
Stellan stood there with blood on his sleeve.
Not his.
I hoped.
Behind him, two men in suits dragged an unconscious attacker down the hall.
“What happened?”
“Someone tested my security.”
“Why?”
His eyes dropped to Fern.
“I think they were testing whether the rumors were true.”
“What rumors?”
“That I care about something.”
Fear crawled over my skin.
He touched an earpiece.
“Lock down the estate.”
Then he looked at me.
“You and Fern aren’t going home.”
I laughed once.
It sounded hysterical.
“You don’t get to decide that.”
“Tonight I do.”
“You disappeared for two years.”
His expression changed.
“I disappeared because men were hunting me.”
“And now they’re shooting at your house!”
“Exactly.”
I stepped closer.
“You think Fern is yours?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know dates.”
“That’s not proof.”
“No.”
His face became unreadable.
“So we get proof.”
I stared at him.
“You want a paternity test.”
“I want the truth.”
My anger finally beat my fear.
“You don’t get to walk back into my life, hold my daughter for ten minutes, and start demanding things.”
His voice dropped.
“If she is my daughter, someone just fired bullets into this house less than twenty feet from where she was sleeping.”
He stepped closer.
“I’m not demanding the truth because I want control.”
His eyes were suddenly the eyes I remembered from that stormy hotel room.
“I’m demanding it because if Fern Cross exists, my enemies will burn this city trying to reach her.”
A man appeared in the doorway.
Tall.
Blond.
Cold smile.
“Boss.”
Stellan turned.
The man held up a phone.
“We caught the shooter.”
“Alive?”
“For now.”
“And?”
The blond man looked at me.
Then at Fern.
May you like
His smile disappeared.
“He had a photograph of the baby.”
