Chapter 4 - WHAT HE DID FOR ME
The prisoner’s name was Erik Sloan.
I watched him through reinforced glass in a basement room that looked nothing like the elegant floors above us.
No marble.
No paintings.
Concrete walls.
Single metal chair.
Erik had bruises around one eye.
Stellan stood across from him.
I should not have been there.
I insisted.
“You followed her two years ago,” Stellan said.
Erik smiled through a split lip.
“You should’ve stayed dead, Cross.”
“Who paid you?”
No answer.
Stellan leaned down.
“Who paid you to watch Selene Vale?”
Erik looked through the glass.
Straight at me.
My stomach dropped.
“He knows I’m here.”
“He guessed,” Dominic said beside me.
I glanced at him.
“You trust Stellan?”
Dominic gave me a strange look.
“With my life.”
“Why?”
“Because he saved it.”
There was more to the answer.
I heard it.
Before I could ask, Erik spoke again.
“You still don’t understand, do you?”
Stellan’s posture changed.
“Understand what?”
Erik laughed.
“The girl was never the target.”
My breath stopped.
Stellan grabbed him by the collar.
“Explain.”
“She was bait.”
“For me?”
“No.”
Erik looked at the glass again.
“For the kid.”
Stellan hit him so hard the chair overturned.
I turned away.
“Enough!”
The room went silent.
Even through the glass.
Stellan looked at me.
I opened the door.
Dominic swore.
“Mrs. Vale—”
“I said enough.”
I stepped inside.
Erik grinned from the floor.
“You’ve got nerve.”
“Who wanted my daughter?”
His smile widened.
“She wasn’t born yet when we started watching you.”
That made no sense.
“You’re lying.”
“Am I?”
Stellan hauled him upright.
“Name.”
Erik spat blood.
“Marek Voss.”
Stellan froze.
Dominic went pale.
That frightened me.
“Who is Marek Voss?”
Nobody answered.
“Who is he?”
Stellan released Erik.
“My uncle.”
I stared.
“You have an uncle trying to kill your baby?”
“He tried to kill me first.”
The truth came upstairs over cold coffee at two in the morning.
Stellan’s father had built the Cross organization.
His younger half-brother, Marek, believed it should have been his.
When Stellan’s father died, Marek started a war.
The charity gala two years earlier had been a trap.
Stellan had been shot.
He escaped using the fake name Adrian Keller.
He met me by accident.
Then discovered Marek’s men were searching nearby.
So he left before sunrise.
“I thought they’d kill you if they knew you mattered,” he said.
“And six months later?”
“I came back.”
“You said someone was watching my apartment.”
“Erik.”
“What did you do?”
“I drew him away.”
“How?”
“I let Marek believe I had never met you.”
My anger softened despite myself.
“You protected me.”
“For as long as I could.”
“Then why was he still watching?”
Stellan looked toward the windows.
“I don’t know.”
Dominic entered without knocking.
“We have the lab.”
Everything inside me tightened.
“So fast?”
“Emergency processing.”
He handed Stellan an envelope.
Stellan didn’t open it.
He gave it to me.
“You first.”
My fingers shook.
I tore the seal.
Read.
Read again.
Probability of paternity: 99.9998%.
I forgot how to breathe.
Fern.
My daughter.
His daughter.
Stellan stared at my face.
“Selene?”
I handed him the paper.
He read one line.
Then sat down hard.
The great Stellan Cross had survived bullets, betrayal, and a family war.
But one laboratory result knocked him into a chair.
“She’s mine.”
I swallowed.
“Yes.”
His eyes filled.
Not with tears exactly.
With something worse.
Something buried.
May you like
“She’s mine.”
Then the lights in the entire mansion went out.
