Chapter 2 - The Shadows of Grayhaven
Roman stood up carefully, supporting three-year-old Amelia with one arm while bringing a small paper cup of water to Elena’s lips with the other.
Elena swallowed greedily, the cool liquid soothing her parched throat. Her dark eyes, fierce despite three years of atrophy, never left his face. When he pulled the cup back, she rasped her first real sentence:
"Why does she call you Papa?"
The silence between them stretched, heavy with three years of unspoken history and blood. Amelia stirred against Roman’s shoulder, letting out a soft sigh before sinking back into deep sleep.
"Because I raised her," Roman said, his tone quiet, almost devoid of his usual commanding force. "From the day they cut her out of you while you lay bleeding on an operating table, Elena. She was twenty-nine weeks old. She weighed two pounds. I stayed in the neonatal unit for four months watching her fight to breathe while you lay in a coma."
Elena felt a sharp knot twist in her chest—a painful blend of intense grief, profound gratitude, and suffocating betrayal. "She’s my daughter."
"She is," Roman agreed without hesitation. "And she is mine. I registered her birth certificate under my name the night she was born. I gave her your mother's middle name. I bought the house in the hills so she wouldn't grow up surrounded by guards in the city estate."
"And the stairs?" Elena’s voice hardened, raw with suppressed fury. "The morning I fell... someone pushed me, Roman. I felt hands on my back. I was coming to tell you about the test."
Roman’s jaw tightened so hard a muscle twitched beneath his scar. His dark eyes flickered with a terrifying, subterranean rage.
"I know," he whispered. "I spent the last three years hunting down everyone involved in that morning. The syndicate in the East thought they could eliminate my soft spot by killing you and the child. They failed."
"And the men outside today?" Elena pressed, her gaze darting toward the reinforced door where two armed guards stood silent vigil in the hallway. "They were trying to finish what they started?"
"They were trying to take Lia," Roman corrected, his grip on the sleeping child tightening instinctively. "The Moretti family knows you woke up. Word leaked from the ICU staff within an hour of your eyes opening. They know Lia is my greatest weakness. If they control her, they control the Vale empire."
Before Elena could speak, the door opened softly.
A tall man in a charcoal suit stepped inside. It was Viktor, Roman’s long-time right-hand man and chief of security. His face was grim, a fresh bandage taped over his left temple.
"Boss," Viktor whispered, casting a brief, respectful glance toward Elena. "The floor is secure, but the police chief is downstairs. He’s demanding answers about the gunfire in the lobby. Moretti’s lawyers are already filing an emergency injunction claiming you brought an active war zone into a public hospital."
Roman didn't flinch. "Tell the chief to check his offshore account balance before he speaks to the press. Have the secondary convoy prepared at the underground bay. We move Elena to the estate tonight."
"Move me?" Elena objected, trying to sit higher in bed, though a wave of dizziness forced her back against the pillows. "I’m not going anywhere with you, Roman! I am staying in this hospital until I can walk, and then I am taking my daughter!"
Roman walked to the side of her bed, looking down at her with an intensity that made her breath catch.
"Look at this room, Elena," Roman said, his voice dropping into a harsh, dangerous register. "Look at the bullet holes in the hallway drywall. You cannot walk. You cannot protect her. If you stay here, Moretti will burn this hospital to the ground to take her from you. At my estate, there are fifty armed men, anti-ballistic glass, and a medical suite equipped for your rehabilitation."
He leaned down, his face inches from hers, the scent of expensive cologne and faint gunpowder clinging to his skin.
"You don't have to trust me," Roman rasped softly. "You can hate me as much as you want. But if you want to keep our daughter alive, you will come home."
Elena looked from Roman’s cold, unyielding eyes down to Amelia’s tiny hand resting against his collarbone. She had no strength, no money, and no allies in Grayhaven.
May you like
"Fine," Elena whispered, tears of sheer helplessness burning her eyes. "I’ll go to your fortress. But don't you ever call her yours in front of me again."
Roman’s eyes darkened, a flash of deep, unhealable pain crossing his features before he masked it completely. "Get her prepped, Viktor. We leave in ten minutes."
