Chapter 1 - The Shadow of the Third Child
The paper felt like ice between my trembling fingers. Triplets. A hospital record from St. Jude’s Memorial, dated nine months ago—exactly seven months after I had thrown Maren out into the rain.
I turned slowly to face the private investigator, Arthur Vance. He was cowering against his mahogany bookshelf, his eyes wide with fear as he pressed his back against the books.
“Where is she?” My voice was low, laced with a dangerous calm that scared even me. “Where is the third baby, Vance?”
“Rowan, please… you don’t understand what you’re dealing with,” Vance stammered, sweating through his silk pajama shirt. “I was paid! I was paid three times my annual salary just to file the false report about Maren’s affair. I was told to keep the medical files vault-locked! If I talked, they threatened to end me!”
I stepped closer, grabbing him by the collar and shoving him against the wall. “Who paid you?”
Vance choked, swallowing hard. “It wasn’t just one person. The wired funds came from an offshore account tied to Whitmore Enterprises. Tessa’s family. But the physical doctor's report—the one ordering the separation of the children—came from your own company’s board of directors!”
My blood turned to pure fire. Tessa. And my own board. They had conspired to destroy Maren, strip me of my family, and secure control over my corporate empire.
“What happened to the third child?” I roared, tightening my grip.
“She… she was born with a severe congenital heart defeat,” Vance squeaked out, tears of terror leaking from his eyes. “Maren couldn’t afford the surgery! The hospital threatened to relinquish custody to state care because Maren was living out of her car! Someone paid the initial medical bills anonymously, but they took the girl away into a private medical foster program controlled by the Whitmores!”
I dropped Vance to the floor. He collapsed into a heap, gasping for breath.
My entire world had been built on a foundation of orchestrated lies. A year ago, when photos arrived showing Maren entering a high-end hotel with another man, along with bank slips showing two hundred thousand dollars transferred out of my personal account into a shell company under her name, I hadn't questioned it. Blinded by pride and betrayal, I had signed the divorce papers, canceled her cards, and locked her out of our home.
She had stood in the driveway, crying, begging me to listen. “Rowan, I swear on my life, I don’t even know what that hotel is! Someone is setting me up!”
And I had turned my back.
Now, she was walking dusty county backroads, collecting aluminum cans to buy formula for two of my children, while my third child was hidden away in some medical facility owned by the monster I was supposed to marry in three weeks.
I left Vance groveling on the floor, taking the entire file with me. Outside, the night air was biting and cold. I got into my SUV, staring at the twin baby boys' faces burned into my memory—their soft blond curls, their light blue eyes.
I pulled out my phone and dialed my head of security, Mark, a man who had served with me in the military before I built my tech empire.
“Rowan? It’s past midnight. Is everything alright?” Mark’s voice was instantly alert.
“Mark, I need you to assemble a off-the-books team,” I said, my voice shaking with restrained rage. “I need round-the-clock protection on Maren. Don't let her or the boys see you, but ensure not a single hair on their heads is touched. And I need you to locate every private facility owned by Whitmore Medical. We have a missing child to find.”
There was a silence on the line before Mark answered gravely, “Consider it done, boss. What about Miss Whitmore?”
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I looked at the diamond engagement ring sitting in a velvet box on my passenger seat—a ring Tessa had insisted I pick up from the jeweler earlier that day.
“Keep your eyes on her,” I whispered. “She thinks she’s winning. I want her to keep thinking that until I burn her world to the ground.”
