Chapter 5 - THE NIGHT SOMEONE CAME FOR MY BABYThe stranger never reached us.
Marcus's security team intercepted him downstairs after less than ninety seconds that felt like an hour.
His name was Derek Malloy.
Former private-security contractor.
He had driven a stolen SUV through the service gate, cut the external power supply, and entered carrying zip ties, sedatives, and a forged document identifying him as a federal investigator.
Police arrested him.
But the worst part wasn't what he carried.
It was what he said.
“I wasn't going to hurt anybody.”
Detectives questioned him in the house.
“I was told to bring the girl somewhere.”
“Where?”
“A private clinic.”
My stomach turned.
“What clinic?”
Malloy refused to say until his attorney arrived.
Then Denise found something on the forged paperwork.
A company logo.
Vanguard Executive Solutions.
Marcus knew the name.
“They're corporate security.”
“For Ashford?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“For companies wealthy enough not to call ordinary security.”
“Does Victoria use them?”
“No.”
“Julian?”
Marcus looked at Ethan.
“I've seen Vanguard personnel around him.”
That was enough for Ethan.
He reached for his coat.
“I'm going to him.”
Marcus physically stepped in front of the door.
“No.”
“Move.”
“No.”
“He sent someone after Mia.”
“We don't know that.”
“He lied about Samuel.”
“Still doesn't make confronting a potentially dangerous suspect alone intelligent.”
Gabriel nodded.
“I like him.”
Ethan glared.
I sat at the kitchen island shaking.
Not dramatically.
Not visibly at first.
My body simply wouldn't stop.
Ethan noticed.
His anger vanished.
He knelt several feet from me, careful not to touch me.
“Mia?”
“I want this to stop.”
“I know.”
“I don't care about the company.”
“I know.”
“I don't care about your trust.”
“I know.”
“I want my old apartment.”
His face tightened.
“I want my stupid restaurant job and my fifty-dollar thrift-store dresser.”
“I know.”
“I want to be annoyed because you leave wet towels on the bed.”
A tear slid down my cheek.
“Not because someone broke into a mansion to kidnap me.”
Ethan lowered his head.
Then I said what had been building since the night I saw the Rolls-Royce.
“I wish you'd never met me.”
His head snapped up.
The pain on his face was immediate.
I hated myself for causing it.
But I meant it in that moment.
“If you hadn't met me, I wouldn't be in this.”
He stood slowly.
“If I hadn't met you, I don't know if I'd still be alive.”
I stared at him.
He didn't explain.
He simply walked outside.
Hours later, Malloy's attorney negotiated.
Malloy claimed an intermediary hired him to take me to a private medical facility where I was supposed to be “persuaded” to sign documents.
“What documents?” Denise demanded.
Malloy said he never saw them.
But the clinic name changed everything.
Wellington Women's Center.
Closed five years earlier.
I watched Ethan turn pale.
“Camille went there.”
“For what?” I asked.
“Prenatal care.”
Marcus searched old corporate records.
The clinic's former majority investor was a medical holding company.
The holding company was owned by another corporation.
Which eventually led back to a trust.
The trustee?
Victoria Ashford.
I stared at Ethan.
“You said Julian.”
“I said Vanguard was connected to Julian.”
“You assumed.”
“Yes.”
“So your mother owned the clinic where someone intended to take me.”
“Yes.”
It felt like a chessboard where every piece belonged to the same family.
Then Denise received a call.
The police had located Samuel Price.
Alive.
Barely.
He had been found behind an abandoned warehouse with two broken ribs and a concussion.
We went to the hospital.
Samuel agreed to speak with us after police finished questioning him.
He looked smaller than the man from the surveillance photograph.
Tired.
Terrified.
Five years of fear had carved itself into his face.
Ethan stood beside the hospital bed.
“Why did Julian bring Camille's car to you?”
Samuel swallowed.
“He told me she complained about the brakes.”
“Were they broken?”
“No.”
“What did you do?”
“Inspected them.”
“And?”
“They were fine when they left my garage.”
Everyone froze.
Ethan stared.
“What?”
“The brakes were not cut when Julian brought the car.”
“But someone cut them afterward.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Samuel closed his eyes.
“I don't know.”
Ethan slammed a palm against the wall.
“Then why tell Mia to ask my brother?”
“Because Julian paid me to lie after the crash.”
Silence.
“He paid you?”
“Twenty thousand.”
“To say what?”
“If anyone asked, I was supposed to say I never saw the car.”
“Why?”
Samuel looked at him.
“Because Julian was protecting someone.”
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
“Stop saying that.”
“I don't!”
Samuel's monitor accelerated.
A nurse appeared.
“Sir, you need to calm down.”
Ethan backed away.
Samuel breathed slowly.
Then he looked at me.
“Camille came to see me the afternoon before she died.”
“Why?”
“She wanted to know if someone had tampered with her car.”
Ethan's face changed.
“She suspected something?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Samuel hesitated.
Then:
“Your mother.”
Ethan looked sick.
“But the car was fine.”
“When I checked it.”
“Then somebody damaged it afterward.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
Samuel swallowed.
“She drove directly from my garage to the Ashford estate.”
Every eye turned toward Ethan.
My voice became quiet.
“Who was at the estate that night?”
He thought.
“My mother.”
“Julian?”
“Yes.”
“Anyone else?”
He stared at the floor.
“One person.”
“Who?”
“My uncle, Charles.”
Another relative.
Another secret.
“Who is Charles?”
“My father's younger brother.”
“Does he own company shares?”
“Eighteen percent.”
Denise's eyes sharpened.
“And if Ethan died without an heir?”
Ethan looked at her.
“Some of my shares would revert to Charles's branch.”
There it was again.
Money.
Inheritance.
Blood.
Samuel suddenly reached for Ethan's sleeve.
“There's something else.”
“What?”
“Camille wasn't driving toward your apartment when she crashed.”
Ethan frowned.
“Police said she was.”
“They were wrong.”
“How do you know?”
“She called me twenty minutes before the crash.”
“From where?”
“The Ashford estate.”
My skin prickled.
“What did she say?” I asked.
Samuel looked at Ethan.
“She was crying.”
“What did she say?”
Samuel repeated the words he'd been carrying for five years.
“She said, ‘Ethan's father didn't die the way they told him.’”
Ethan's entire body went rigid.
“My father?”
“Yes.”
“What did she mean?”
“She said she'd found something in the estate.”
“What?”
“A recording.”
Ethan stepped closer.
“What recording?”
Samuel shook his head.
“She wouldn't tell me.”
“Where is it?”
“I don't know.”
“What happened to it?”
“I don't know.”
Ethan looked ready to explode.
Then Samuel whispered,
“But Camille said if anything happened to her, she'd hidden a copy somewhere only you would understand.”
Ethan stared.
“Where?”
Samuel's exhausted eyes moved toward him.
“She said one word.”
“What word?”
“Lighthouse.”
Ethan stopped breathing.
I saw immediately that it meant something.
“What lighthouse?”
He turned to me.
When he spoke, his voice barely existed.
“My father used to take me to one every summer.”
“Where?”
“Rhode Island.”
Twenty-four hours later, we were driving toward the coast.
Toward a lighthouse Ethan hadn't visited since childhood.
Toward whatever Camille had hidden five years earlier.
And toward the truth about a family in which two people had already died.
Neither Ethan nor I knew we were being followed.
Not by Victoria.
Not by Julian.
But by the one Ashford relative nobody had considered dangerous.
May you like
Charles Ashford.
The man who stood to inherit billions if Ethan and our unborn child disappeared.
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