Chapter 4
I held the photo until the edges bent under my fingers.
Rose had wide eyes, dark hair, and a small red mark near her left eye.
She looked nothing like a bargaining chip.
She looked like a child someone should have been singing to.
Claire reached for the crib.
Her legs buckled.
I caught her before she hit the floor.
“I had her,” she whispered. “I was so close.”
“You saved Eli.”
“She was crying.”
“Claire.”
“She was crying, Gabriel.”
I had no comfort strong enough for that.
Mason stepped into the office with a tablet.
“We got the warehouse cameras.”
“And?”
“Mostly wiped. But the exterior caught two vehicles leaving twenty minutes before we arrived.”
“Plate?”
“One clean. One obscured.”
“Track both.”
He hesitated.
“There’s more.”
He turned the tablet toward me.
A frozen frame filled the screen.
Vivienne stood near the loading dock in a black coat, holding Rose wrapped in the pink blanket.
My aunt.
My blood.
The woman who taught me to tie a tie for Nathan’s funeral when I was seventeen.
The woman who kissed Eli’s forehead and called him our last light.
The woman carrying a stolen baby through a warehouse door.
Claire looked at the image.
“She wasn’t just helping Cross.”
“No,” I said.
“She was directing him.”
I called every safe house Vivienne knew.
All emptied.
I froze every account she could touch.
I sent men to her townhouse, her lake property, her offices, her private chapel.
Gone.
But Vivienne had raised me.
She knew how I hunted.
So I stopped hunting like myself.
I called Elena Marchetti.
The one person Vivienne hated enough to underestimate.
Elena was my mother’s oldest friend and the only lawyer in Chicago who had ever told my father no to his face.
She answered on the second ring.
“Gabriel Kane. Someone must be dead or pregnant.”
“Vivienne took Eli tonight.”
Silence.
Then, “Is he alive?”
“Yes.”
“Then why do you sound like there is worse?”
I looked at Rose’s photo.
“Because she has another baby.”
Elena swore softly.
“Name?”
“Rose.”
Another silence.
Too long.
“Elena.”
Her voice changed.
“Come to my office. Bring Claire Bennett. Bring the baby. Trust no one from your house.”
“How do you know Claire?”
“I know more than Vivienne thinks I know.”
The line went dead.
Claire stared at me.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then we go.”
“You need a hospital.”
“I need answers.”
We compromised badly.
Doctor in the car.
IV in Claire’s arm.
Eli asleep against her chest again.
When we reached Elena’s office, she met us in the underground garage with two retired federal marshals and a face full of fury.
She looked at Eli first.
Then Claire.
Her expression softened.
“You look like your mother.”
Claire went still.
“What?”
Elena turned to me.
“You don’t know?”
“Know what?”
Claire looked between us.
“My mother died when I was twelve.”
“No,” Elena said gently. “Your mother disappeared when you were twelve.”
Claire’s face went blank.
I stepped closer.
Elena opened a file.
Inside was a photograph of a young woman with Claire’s eyes standing beside my brother Nathan.
Not romantically.
Desperately.
“Elena,” I said. “Speak.”
“Grace Whitmore had a sister.”
My breath stopped.
Claire shook her head.
“No.”
“A half sister. Hidden by the Whitmore family after an affair. Her name was Anna Bennett.”
Claire’s hands began to tremble.
“That was my mother.”
Elena nodded.
“Grace found her before she died. She changed the trust to include Anna’s bloodline if anything happened to Eli.”
Claire looked down at the baby in her arms.
“What does that mean?”
Elena’s eyes moved to me.
“It means Claire is Eli’s aunt by blood.”
The room spun.
Claire whispered, “No.”
Elena placed another document on the table.
“And if Eli died or vanished, the Whitmore shares would pass to the next eligible heir.”
I already knew before she said it.
Claire.
Claire looked at me in horror.
“I didn’t know.”
“I know.”
Her voice broke.
“Gabriel, I swear I didn’t know.”
I took one step toward her.
She flinched.
That hurt worse than betrayal.
“I believe you,” I said.
Tears spilled down her face.
Elena tapped the file.
“Vivienne knew. Cross knew. They took Eli to force Gabriel. They took Rose for another reason.”
“What reason?” I asked.
May you like
Elena swallowed.
“Rose is Grace’s secret daughter.”
