Chapter 2
The ambulance lights painted the manor walls red and blue.
I lay on a stretcher with an oxygen mask pressed to my face while Ethan walked beside me.
He would not let go of my hand.
I wanted to pull away.
I wanted to hate him cleanly.
But his fingers were cold.
His face was ruined.
“Where is she?” he asked.
I knew who he meant.
Lily.
Our daughter.
The daughter he had never known.
“Safe,” I whispered.
“With who?”
“My aunt Margaret.”
His jaw tightened.
“You found her three weeks ago?”
I nodded.
The paramedic told me not to talk.
I talked anyway.
“I needed proof before I came back.”
Ethan bent closer.
“Proof of what?”
I looked past him.
Eleanor stood near the front steps between two officers, still acting like the queen of a kingdom that had already burned.
“Of everything,” I said.
At the hospital, they took me for scans.
Bruised ribs.
A sprained wrist.
A concussion.
Nothing broken badly enough to keep me unconscious, though I almost wished it would.
Pain was easier than Ethan’s questions.
He sat in the chair beside my bed, still wearing his torn tuxedo.
He looked older than he had two years ago.
Harder.
Hollowed out.
“I thought you left because you hated me,” he said.
I turned my face toward the window.
“I left because your mother had me removed.”
His breath stopped.
“What?”
“She told security I was unstable. She told the doctor I was dangerous. She told the staff I had imagined the pregnancy complications.”
My throat tightened.
“Then she told me our baby died.”
Ethan covered his mouth.
“I was in London.”
“Yes.”
“She said you refused to see me.”
“She lied.”
He stood, then sat again, like his body did not know where to put grief.
“I called the hospital.”
“She had already changed the contact list.”
“I sent letters.”
“I never got them.”
“I came home and you were gone.”
“I was sedated and sent to a recovery clinic under my maiden name.”
Ethan stared at me.
The machines beeped between us.
For two years, I had dreamed of saying those words.
Now that I had, they felt too small.
He bent forward and pressed both hands to his head.
“I believed her.”
I swallowed hard.
“So did everyone.”
A knock came at the door.
Detective Mara Singh stepped inside.
She was calm, sharp-eyed, and carrying a folder.
“Mrs. Blackwood?”
I flinched at the name.
Ethan noticed.
The detective did too.
“I need to ask a few questions,” she said. “But first, your husband gave me the envelope.”
“My husband didn’t give me the envelope,” I said. “I brought it.”
Ethan looked down.
Detective Singh nodded.
“There is a birth certificate for Lily Claire Blackwood. There is also a signed adoption placement that appears to transfer custody to an Eleanor Blackwood Foundation residential program two days after birth.”
My stomach turned.
“I never signed that.”
“I believe you.”
That was the first time someone in authority had said those words to me.
I cried without meaning to.
Detective Singh waited.
Then she said, “The signature is already being compared with samples. We also found something interesting.”
Ethan lifted his head.
“What?”
“The nurse who contacted Mrs. Blackwood also contacted us.”
My heart slammed.
“Marianne?”
“Yes. Marianne Holt. She is under protection tonight.”
Ethan’s eyes locked on mine.
“She told me Eleanor paid her to mark our daughter as deceased,” I said. “Then Lily was moved through a private charity.”
“My mother’s charity,” he said.
Detective Singh’s voice softened.
“Mr. Blackwood, your mother’s charity may have trafficked more than one child through fraudulent guardianship papers.”
The room went dead.
For one second, even the machines sounded far away.
Ethan stood.
“No.”
“I’m sorry,” the detective said. “We are executing warrants.”
I closed my eyes.
Lily’s face flashed in my mind.
Dark curls.
Serious eyes.
The way she held my sleeve even in sleep.
I had thought my nightmare belonged only to me.
Now it had a hallway full of doors.
Ethan moved toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
“To find my daughter.”
I forced myself upright.
Pain tore through me.
“No.”
He froze.
“You don’t get to storm into her life because you finally know.”
His face crumpled.
“I’m her father.”
“You are a stranger to her.”
The words cut him.
They cut me too.
But I had held Lily while she screamed through night terrors.
I had watched her hide food under pillows.
I had seen fear in a two-year-old child’s eyes when someone raised a hand too quickly.
Love was not enough.
Not yet.
Ethan nodded slowly.
“You’re right.”
I did not expect that.
He stepped back from the bed.
“I’ll do whatever you say.”
Detective Singh’s phone rang.
She answered, listened, then turned to me.
“Mrs. Blackwood, we need to move quickly.”
My blood went cold.
“What happened?”
She looked at Ethan first.
Then at me.
“Eleanor made one phone call before officers took her phone.”
“To who?”
“To the director of the residential program.”
I ripped the oxygen mask from my face.
“No.”
Detective Singh stepped closer.
“We have units on the way to your aunt’s house.”
Ethan’s face went white.
I swung my legs over the bed.
The room tilted.
“Claire,” Ethan said.
I pushed his hand away.
“If Lily is in danger, I am going.”
May you like
The detective did not argue.
She only said, “Then we leave now.”
