Chapter 2 - The Whispers of Manhattan
The morning light filtering through the floor-to-ceiling glass of my Emerald Tower office felt glaringly bright. For five years, I had believed that I possessed total control over my life, my wealth, and my legacy. But sitting across from two four-year-old boys who shared my exact shade of ice-blue eyes, I felt stripped of every illusion.
Emma.
The name echoed inside my head with the weight of a stone dropping into a dark well. Emma Vance had been an architect with a fiery passion for historical preservation and a stubborn refusal to be bought by men like me. When I met her six years ago, she didn't care about my private jet, my black-card privileges, or the cut of my custom suits. She loved me for the quiet hours we spent walking along the Hudson, talking about structural blueprints and childhood dreams.
And then, my father died.
The board of Miller Meridian Capital had given me an ultimatum: step into his shoes immediately and marry into the Sterling family to seal a multi-billion-dollar energy merger, or watch the empire my family built crumble under hostile takeovers. I had chosen power. I had chosen the glass box. I walked into Emma’s small apartment in Brooklyn, handed her a severance check she never cashed, and told her that our lives were moving in different directions.
I had never looked back. Until now.
"Mr. Miller?" Claire’s voice broke through the silence. She stood near the heavy glass door, her hands clutching a silver tablet to her chest. "The board members are arriving in the main conference room. The acquisition meeting for Vance Logistics starts in ten minutes."
I looked at the boys. Liam was wiping syrup off Lucas’s chin with a paper napkin, his tiny hands remarkably deliberate.
"Cancel the meeting," I said flatly.
Claire blinked, her jaw dropping slightly. "Sir? You’ve been negotiating the Vance Logistics takeover for six months. If you don't show up, Arthur Vance will take his portfolio to our rivals at Blackwood Holdings."
Arthur Vance.
The name struck me like a physical blow. Emma’s uncle. The ruthless, cold-hearted patriarch of the Vance estate who had disowned Emma five years ago when she refused to let him control her architectural designs.
"I said cancel it," I repeated, my voice dropping into a register that made Claire step back instinctively. "Reschedule for tomorrow morning. And Claire... call Marcus. Tell him to come up here through the private elevator immediately."
Marcus Sterling was my head of corporate security and the only man in Manhattan whose loyalty I paid five million dollars a year to guarantee.
Ten minutes later, Marcus walked into the office. Built like a brick wall with graying temples and sharp gray eyes, he took one look at the twins sitting on my leather couch, then looked at me. He didn't ask stupid questions. He simply leaned against my desk and waited.
"I need a full trace on Emma Vance," I told Marcus quietly, keeping my back turned to the boys. "Where she’s been living for the past four years, her medical records, her bank statements, and every flight or train record out of New York from the past forty-eight hours."
Marcus nodded once, pulling out a dark secure phone. "And the kids?"
"They’re mine, Marcus," I whispered, the words tasting strange, heavy, and terrifying on my tongue. "They’re my sons."
"Understood," Marcus said smoothly. "I’ll run the DNA verification quietly through our private lab just to keep the board’s lawyers from throwing a fit later, but... I don't think you need a lab test, Jason. The boy in the red hoodie has your exact jawline when you're pissed off."
While Marcus initiated the trace, I walked back toward the couch. Liam looked up at me, his blue eyes holding a wisdom that no child his age should ever possess.
"Is this your house?" Liam asked, sweeping his arm around the high-ceilinged room.
"It’s my office," I replied, sitting on the edge of the glass coffee table so I was eye-level with them. "I work here."
"Where do you sleep?" Lucas asked, his voice soft, almost raspy. He was still clutching the tiny canvas backpack to his chest like a shield.
"I have an apartment down the street," I said. "With big beds, a kitchen, and a terrace."
"Does it have monsters?" Lucas whispered.
My brow furrowed. "No monsters. Why?"
Liam pressed his lips together in a tight line, glancing at his brother before answering for him. "The bad man came to our house two nights ago. He kicked the door real loud. Mommy hid us in the pantry with the backpack and told us to make no sound. Then she took us to a big train station and gave a lady money to bring us to this big building."
A dark, icy rage began to bloom in my chest, expanding until it felt difficult to breathe.
"What bad man, Liam?" I asked softly, forcing my voice to remain perfectly calm.
"He wore a dark coat," Liam murmured. "He had a ring with a lion on it. He told Mommy she couldn't hide the papers anymore."
A ring with a lion.
My blood ran cold. The crest of the Vance family was a crested silver lion. Arthur Vance.
Before I could process the implication, Marcus stepped back into the room, his face unusually pale. He looked at me, then gestured toward the private hallway leading to my personal quarters.
I stood up. "Stay here for a minute, boys. Eat some more fruit."
I followed Marcus into the hallway. The moment the soundproof door closed, Marcus held up his tablet screen.
"We found Emma’s residence," Marcus said, his voice flat and heavy. "A small cottage in Upstate New York, near Ithaca. Jason... the house was burned to the ground at two o'clock yesterday morning."
My breath hitched. "And Emma?"
"Local fire departments found no human remains in the ash," Marcus replied. "She got out. But her car was found abandoned near the Poughkeepsie train station. Her phone was smashed on the driver's seat. Someone was hunting her, Jason."
I grabbed the edge of the doorframe, my knuckles turning white. Emma hadn't abandoned our sons because she was tired or bitter. She had dropped them on my doorstep because my Manhattan fortress was the only place on Earth with security tight enough to keep them alive while she ran.
"Find her," I growled, looking through the glass panel at the two little boys sitting in my multi-million-dollar chair. "Use every asset Miller Meridian owns. Hire private mercenaries if you have to. Find my wife."
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"Wife?" Marcus asked, his eyebrows raising.
"She's the mother of my children," I said, my voice hardening into pure steel. "And if Arthur Vance touched a single hair on her head, I will burn his entire family legacy to the ground."
