Chapter 2 - The Necklace That Should Not Exist
“Take the children inside,” Marcus ordered.
“No,” I said.
Lily stood frozen beside Elena.
Ben looked between the armed guards and the closed doors.
“Sir, maybe I should call someone.”
“You will not call anyone.”
His face went pale.
Marcus raised a hand.
“No one is going to hurt you. Sit on that bench.”
Ben obeyed.
Lily did not move.
She looked up at Elena.
“You said my parents died.”
Elena lowered herself to her knees.
“I thought that was the safest thing to tell you.”
“So you lied?”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From him?”
Her eyes moved toward me.
Elena did not answer.
Lily pulled away from her.
I had faced prosecutors, assassins, and men who had once placed a gun against my head.
Nothing had prepared me for the fear in my daughter’s eyes.
I turned toward Marcus.
“Clear the room.”
“Caleb—”
“Everyone except Elena and the children.”
He studied me for a moment, then signaled the guards.
When the doors closed behind them, I removed the blanket from my legs.
The tattoos on my hands disappeared beneath my sleeves as I folded them in my lap.
“Lily,” I said, “I did not know you were alive.”
She stared at the lion tattoo visible through my open black shirt.
“You’re really my dad?”
“I do not know yet.”
Elena flinched.
“You know.”
“I know what you claim. I want proof.”
“You have her necklace.”
“A necklace can be stolen.”
“I did not steal it.”
“Then explain how you got it.”
Elena stood slowly.
“Not in front of her.”
“You lost the right to decide that.”
“She is seven years old.”
“She is my daughter.”
Lily’s lower lip trembled.
“Stop saying that.”
Silence filled the garden.
She clutched her teddy bear tighter.
“You don’t know me.”
The words hit harder than they should have.
“You are right,” I said.
Her eyes lifted toward mine.
“I don’t know you. That is not your fault.”
“Is it yours?”
“No.”
“Is it Mom’s?”
I looked at Elena.
“That depends on what she tells me next.”
Elena wiped her face.
“Eight years ago, I worked as a nurse at Saint Vincent.”
I remembered the hospital corridors. The smell of disinfectant. The doctors refusing to meet my eyes.
“You were there the night Audrey died?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
Elena glanced at Lily.
I turned to Ben.
“Take her to the fountain.”
Lily shook her head.
“I want to hear.”
“You may not like what you hear.”
“It’s about me.”
She sounded so much like Audrey that my chest ached.
I nodded once.
Elena drew a trembling breath.
“Mrs. Marino arrived with severe bleeding. The doctors performed an emergency delivery. Lily was born early, but she was breathing.”
My fingers tightened against the armrests.
“Who ordered the hospital to declare her dead?”
“I don’t know his real name. Everyone called him Mr. Gray.”
Marcus had returned silently and now stood near the doors.
His expression changed.
“Gray?”
Elena looked at him.
“You know him?”
“Continue,” I said.
“A man in a charcoal suit entered the neonatal unit with two security officers. He had documents signed by the hospital director. He said the baby had to be transferred because someone intended to kill her.”
“Did he mention me?”
“He said you were responsible.”
Lily looked at me.
I kept my voice controlled.
“And you believed him?”
“At first.”
Elena swallowed.
“Then I saw one of the men prepare an injection.”
“What injection?”
“Potassium chloride.”
Marcus cursed under his breath.
Elena’s voice cracked.
“It would have stopped Lily’s heart.”
Lily buried her face against her teddy bear.
I wanted to reach for her.
I did not know whether I had the right.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“I switched the identification bands with a stillborn infant from another delivery. Then I carried Lily through the service elevator and left the hospital.”
“You kidnapped her.”
“I saved her.”
“You could have brought her to me.”
“I tried.”
The answer came too quickly.
I leaned forward.
“When?”
“Three days later. I called your office.”
“Who answered?”
“A man named Vincent.”
Every muscle in my upper body hardened.
Vincent Marino was my father’s younger brother.
He had been my adviser for fifteen years.
He had stood beside my hospital bed and told me Audrey and the baby were dead.
Marcus stepped closer.
“What did Vincent say?”
“He told me Caleb Marino had ordered the child eliminated because she might not be his.”
A bitter taste filled my mouth.
Elena continued.
“I didn’t believe him. I said I would contact Mr. Marino directly.”
“And?”
“He knew my address.”
Her eyes filled with fear.
“He told me my husband was driving home from work. Then he described the color of his car.”
“What happened to your husband?”
“His brakes failed the next morning.”
Lily looked at Elena.
“Dad died in an accident.”
Elena nodded through her tears.
“Yes.”
“You said it happened before I was born.”
“I’m sorry.”
Lily backed away.
“Everything you told me is a lie.”
“No. Not everything.”
“My birthday?”
“Real.”
“My name?”
“I chose Lily because Audrey had written it on the hospital form.”
Elena looked at me.
“She wanted to name her Lily Grace.”
I closed my eyes.
Audrey had suggested that name months before the accident.
I had pretended not to like it.
Secretly, I had ordered a tiny silver bracelet engraved with the initials L.G.M.
It had never been found.
“What happened after your husband died?” Marcus asked.
“I disappeared. I changed our names, moved between cities, and worked temporary jobs. Every time I thought Vincent had stopped looking, someone appeared.”
“Why come here?” I asked.
“Because two weeks ago, a man broke into our apartment.”
Ben spoke from the bench.
“He didn’t take money.”
Elena nodded.
“He searched Lily’s room.”
My gaze shifted toward Marcus.
“How did she pass the employee screening?”
“She used authentic documents,” he said. “We checked them.”
“Authentic under a false identity?”
Elena reached into her apron pocket and placed an identification card on the table.
The name read Elena Hayes.
The photograph matched.
“I was born Elena Hayes,” she said. “My married name was Elena Bennett. Hayes was never false.”
“Why work in my house?”
“Because hiding was no longer protecting her. I needed to get close enough to tell you.”
“You have worked here for eleven days.”
“I lost my nerve.”
“You lost your nerve?”
“I spent eight years hearing that you were a monster.”
I glanced at the armed men outside the glass doors.
“That description is not entirely inaccurate.”
“You kill people.”
“Sometimes.”
Lily’s eyes widened.
I looked at her.
“People who tried to kill me.”
“That doesn’t make it okay.”
“No,” I said. “It does not.”
My honesty seemed to confuse her.
Elena touched Lily’s shoulder.
“I was going to speak to Mr. Marino tonight.”
“But Lily found me first.”
“She has always been difficult to contain.”
“I heard that,” Lily muttered.
A faint smile touched Elena’s face before disappearing.
I pressed a button on my wheelchair.
“Marcus, call Dr. Evelyn Shaw. Have her come here with a sealed DNA kit.”
Lily looked frightened.
“What’s DNA?”
“A test that will tell us whether I am your father.”
“Does it hurt?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“I have been shot three times. I know the difference between something that hurts and something that does not.”
She looked at the tattoos running over my hands.
“Did the tattoos hurt?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you get so many?”
“Poor judgment.”
Ben snorted before covering it with a cough.
Lily almost smiled.
Then Marcus’s phone rang.
He answered.
“Vale.”
His expression hardened.
“Where?”
I watched him cross toward the fountain.
“When did the camera go down?”
He ended the call.
“Caleb, we have a problem.”
“How large?”
“The eastern surveillance system has been looping the same thirty seconds of footage for the past hour.”
Elena went still.
Marcus pulled his weapon.
“Someone deliberately let Lily into the garden.”
The first gunshot struck the glass ceiling.
Ben screamed.
The second shattered a marble planter.
Marcus dropped behind my wheelchair and shoved it toward the fountain.
“Get down!”
Elena pulled both children behind a stone bench.
Three guards rushed through the doors as more bullets tore through the glass.
I reached beneath the right side of my chair and removed the pistol mounted there.
Lily saw it.
Her face turned white.
“Stay behind the bench!” I shouted.
A dark figure moved along the upper balcony.
I fired twice.
The attacker disappeared.
Marcus spoke into his radio.
“Lock the estate. Nobody leaves.”
A bullet struck the wheel beside my hand.
My chair tilted.
I hit the marble floor hard.
Pain shot through my shoulder.
Marcus returned fire.
“Elena, take the children through the west door!”
“There are men outside!”
“They’re ours.”
Lily broke away from Elena.
She ran toward me.
“Lily!” Elena screamed.
The girl dropped beside my wheelchair.
“You’re bleeding.”
“Get back.”
She grabbed my arm.
“I’m not leaving you.”
Another shot hit the fountain.
Water exploded over us.
I wrapped one arm around Lily and pulled her against my chest.
May you like
For the first time in eight years, I held my daughter.
And somewhere above us, a man had come to finish the murder that had begun on the night she was born.
