Chapter 3 - The Timber Yard
The rain in Green Bay smelled of damp pine, sawdust, and wet earth.
Bella Kovalchuk sat in a tiny wooden office attached to the main warehouse of Miller Timber Co. The desk was covered in paper ledgers, ink pens, and a cold cup of chamomile tea. Through the glass partition, she could see her three-year-old twins, Alex and Lena, sitting on a pile of clean burlap sacks, playing quietly with wooden toy trucks.
"Mommy, look!" Alex called out, holding up a truck missing a wheel. "I fixed it!"
"You did a wonderful job, sweetie," Bella said, offering him a warm, weary smile. She rubbed her tired eyes.
Life was hard. She earned ten dollars an hour keeping books for a lenient manager who allowed her to keep the kids in the office after preschool. They didn't have new clothes, and dinner was often soup and stale bread, but they were safe.
No one knew her here. No one associated her with the dark billionaire of Chicago.
Suddenly, the heavy wooden door of the warehouse slammed open.
The sound echoed through the rafters like a gunshot. The timber workers outside stopped their saws.
Two massive men in black coats stepped through the door, clearing a path. Behind them walked a man whose presence seemed to suck the very oxygen out of the room.
Bella’s teacup slipped from her hand, shattering against the wooden floor.
Lucas Dracott.
He looked larger than life in the dingy timber office. His long black cashmere coat was dry, unbothered by the rain outside. His dark eyes scanned the room, ignoring the sawdust, ignoring the workers, until they locked onto Bella.
And then, his gaze shifted down to the burlap sacks.
Alex and Lena had frozen. Alex immediately stepped in front of his little sister, his small three-year-old body tensing, his gray eyes staring fearlessly up at the towering stranger.
Lucas stopped mid-step.
When he looked at the boy, his breath hitched. It was like looking into a mirror across thirty-four years of time. The same stubborn tilt of the head. The same protective stance over a sister.
"Lucas..." Bella stammered, stepping out of her office, her face drained of all color. "How... how did you find me?"
Lucas slowly turned his attention back to her. His expression was a terrifying storm of anger, betrayal, and absolute possession.
"You stole from me, Bella," Lucas said, his voice dropping into a register so deep it vibrated through the floorboards.
"I didn't steal anything!" Bella cried out, stepping between him and the children. "I took only what you paid me! I left the change on the table!"
"You took my children," Lucas roared, taking three swift strides toward her.
Bella flinched, but she didn't step back. She raised her head, staring up into his furious eyes.
"They are my children!" she spat back, her voice shaking with four years of hidden fear. "You paid for one night with a janitor, Mr. Dracott! You didn't buy my life, and you didn't buy my womb!"
"They carry my blood!" Lucas grabbed her wrist, his grip firm, hot, and unyielding. "You hid my heirs in a rat-infested wood shop! You let my son play in sawdust while he belongs in a palace!"
"Don't touch my mommy!"
A small, furious voice cut through the air.
Three-year-old Alex ran forward, his tiny fists beating against Lucas’s costly trousers. "Let go of her! Go away, bad man!"
Lucas froze. He looked down at the tiny boy hitting his leg with everything he had.
Something inside Lucas’s cold, iron-clad chest cracked wide open. He slowly released Bella’s wrist and dropped to one knee, bringing himself eye-level with the small boy.
"Alex..." Lucas whispered, his voice suddenly losing its terrifying edge.
"My name is Alexander!" the boy shouted, standing his ground, though his lower lip trembled slightly. "And you made my mom cry!"
Lucas reached out a hand, his large, scarred fingers trembling as he hovered near the boy’s cheek, terrified that if he touched him, the boy would vanish like a ghost.
"I didn't mean to make her cry," Lucas said, his voice softer than Viktor had ever heard it in twenty years. "I came to bring you home."
"This is our home," Bella said sternly, pulling Alex back into her arms and holding Lena tight against her skirt. "Leave us alone, Lucas. Please. We don't want your money, and we don't want your world."
Lucas stood up slowly. The vulnerability in his face vanished, replaced once again by the cold, unyielding wall of a mafia boss.
"You don't have a choice, Bella," Lucas said flatly. "You can come back to Chicago willingly, as the mother of my children, and live in my estate. Or my lawyers will strip you of parental rights by morning, citing poverty and child neglect, and I will take them from you by force."
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Bella stared at him, horror choking her throat. "You monster..."
"I told you four years ago what I am," Lucas said, pulling a long gold key from his pocket and laying it on her wooden desk. "The plane is waiting at the airfield. You have twenty minutes to pack their bags."
