I THOUGHT THE BABY IN MY GARDEN COULD SAVE ME FROM LONELINESS - THEN A DYING WOMAN SAID THE REAL HEIR WAS ALREADY INSIDE

The guard went down like a felled oak, blood and amber liquid spraying across my Persian rug.

The second guard lunged, his hand reaching for his firearm, but I didn't give him the chance. I vaulted over the mahogany desk, slamming my weight into his chest. We crashed to the floor. I grabbed his wrist, twisting it until the bone popped, and his gun clattered across the hardwood.

I grabbed the weapon—a sleek, silenced Sig Sauer—and pointed it directly at Richard's chest.

Richard had backed into the corner, his face pale, his immaculate composure entirely shattered. "Edward! Are you insane? This is assault! This is murder!"

"This is self-defense on my own property," I panted, my heart roaring in my ears. I stood up, keeping the gun trained on him. "Get your man up. Get both of them out of my house."

"You can't keep them, Edward," Richard sneered, though his voice shook. "The courts will destroy you. The board of the Drummond Group will remove you the moment they hear about this scandal. You are a single man with a sudden influx of illegally created children. You look like a monster!"

"Then let them try," I said. "Now move."

I forced Richard and his wounded guards out of the mansion and into the pouring rain. As their black SUV sped down my driveway, I knew this was only the first skirmish. The real war was about to begin.

I locked the heavy oak doors, engaged the security system, and ran up the stairs to the third floor.

When I knocked on the door of the guest suite, Mrs. Gable opened it immediately, her face pale. Behind her, Sophia was holding the baby, her eyes alert and terrified.

"They're gone," I said, putting the gun in my waistband. "For now. But we can't stay here. Richard knows this place too well. He has the security codes, the property deeds, everything."

"Where will we go?" Sophia asked.

"A place he doesn't know," I said. "A place I bought under a shell company ten years ago when I thought I needed to disappear from the world."

We packed light. Mrs. Gable gathered diapers, formula, and warm clothes for Sophia. Within thirty minutes, we were in my secondary vehicle—an old, unmarked Land Rover—slipping out through the service gate at the back of the property.

As I drove through the dark, rainy night toward the coastal cliffs of Maine, I looked at Sophia in the passenger seat.

"Are you okay?" I asked.

She looked at her hands. "He... that man, Richard. He came to our apartment once. Before my mother died. He told her that if she ever tried to contact you, he would make sure we both went into the ground. My mother hid me in a closet. I saw his face through the slats."

A cold rage burned in my chest. "He will never touch you again. I promise you that, Sophia."

"Are you really my father?" she asked softly, looking up at me.

"Yes," I said, and for the first time in twelve years, the word didn't feel like a curse. "I am. And I am going to make sure the people who did this to us pay for every single tear you've shed."

We arrived at the safehouse—a modest, stone cabin perched on a cliff overlooking the Atlantic—just as the sun began to rise through the grey clouds. It was isolated, surrounded by dense pine forest.

I spent the first day setting up secure satellite communications. I couldn't trust my usual channels. I needed someone who was entirely outside of Richard's reach.

I made one call.

To a man named Marcus Vance.

Richard's estranged brother. A former military prosecutor who hated his brother's guts even more than I did.

"Edward," Marcus's voice crackled over the secure line. "I heard you had a rough night in Boston. Richard's put out a quiet alert to the board. He's trying to convene an emergency meeting to strip you of your voting rights."

"He's trying to steal my children, Marcus," I said.

There was a long pause on the line. "Children? Plural? I thought you were..."

"I was lied to. I have a twelve-year-old daughter and a three-month-old son. Both biological. Created by Isabella using my genetic material. Richard was the one who funded it."

Marcus let out a low whistle. "Jesus, Edward. Richard's gone full Machiavelli. If he gets control of those kids, he controls the Drummond trust forever."

"I need your help, Marcus. Legally and operationally. I need to prove paternity, and I need to do it without Richard's people intercepting the results."

"I know a lab," Marcus said. "Private. Unbribable. Run by ex-military medical officers in New York. But Edward... you have another problem."

"What's that?"