Chapter 2 - THE BLOODLINE
“Your baby wasn't the heir they were fighting over.”
The words stayed suspended between us.
I stared at Agent Mercer.
“What does that mean?”
The undercover agent beside him—Agent Natalie Reed, the woman I'd known for eleven months as Arthur Vance's assistant—closed the blinds.
“No one can hear us.”
I looked from her to Mercer.
“My baby is Julian's.”
Natalie shook her head.
“That's what Julian believes.”
My stomach tightened.
“What are you saying?”
Mercer opened the file.
“There was a genetic test performed six months ago.”
I stared at the document.
The name on top was Julian Vance.
Below it was mine.
And beneath that—
NOT THE BIOLOGICAL FATHER.
My heart seemed to stop.
“No.”
Natalie leaned forward.
“Clara, listen carefully. Someone altered the original medical records.”
I looked at the document again.
“Then who is the father?”
Neither agent answered.
Finally Mercer said:
“That's the problem.”
He pulled out another photograph.
A young man.
Dark hair.
Sharp jaw.
Familiar eyes.
I knew him immediately.
My fingers began shaking.
“Ethan?”
Ethan Vance.
Julian's younger brother.
Dead for seven years.
At least, that's what everyone had told me.
“He died before I married Julian.”
Mercer shook his head.
“Ethan disappeared.”
My mouth went dry.
“Why?”
Natalie placed another photograph on the bed.
Ethan was standing beside a woman.
That woman was me.
But the photograph had been taken before Julian and I were married.
Before I had ever met the Vance family.
I stared at the image.
“I don't remember this.”
“You were drugged,” Natalie said quietly.
I looked at her.
“What?”
“Seven years ago, you were involved in an accident. The Vances were already watching you.”
Mercer closed the file.
“Ethan discovered what his family was doing. He tried to expose them.”
“And?”
“He disappeared.”
I looked at the photograph again.
A strange pressure filled my chest.
Then I remembered something.
A voice.
A man's voice.
Whispering to me in a hospital corridor years ago.
“If they ever come for you, trust no one named Vance.”
I had forgotten that voice.
Until now.
“Ethan is alive,” I whispered.
Natalie nodded.
“And he's been trying to reach you.”
Suddenly the hospital lights flickered.
Mercer stood.
The door handle moved.
Someone tried to enter.
Natalie immediately reached for her weapon.
“Who is it?”
No answer.
The handle moved again.
Then a voice came through the door.
“Clara?”
Julian.
My blood froze.
He was supposed to be under federal arrest.
Mercer looked at Natalie.
“How did he get here?”
The door suddenly burst open.
Julian stood there.
Two federal agents were behind him.
His face was bruised.
His eyes were wild.
He looked at me.
“Clara…”
I pulled the blanket tighter around myself.
“What do you want?”
He took one step forward.
“I need to tell you the truth.”
Natalie blocked him.
“You're not getting near her.”
Julian looked past her.
Then his eyes fell on my stomach.
His expression changed.
“That's not my child.”
Silence.
He smiled.
A terrifying smile.
“I know who the father is.”
Then he whispered:
“And he's alive.”
Before anyone could respond, every light in the hospital went out.
May you like
And somewhere down the hallway—
A gunshot echoed.
