Chapter 7 - THE CHILD BETWEEN THEMElena did not answer for several seconds.
She could hear every sound in Adrian’s office.
The hum of the air conditioner.
Traffic twenty floors below.
Charles struggling to breathe.
Agent Torres shifting her weight near the door.
And Adrian waiting.
“When?” he repeated.
“Four and a half months ago.”
His face became still.
“That night in Boston was six months ago.”
“Yes.”
Torres looked between them.
Charles suddenly found the window fascinating.
Adrian’s voice lowered.
“You told me Noah was the father.”
“I believed he was.”
“Did you?”
Elena flinched.
He regretted the question immediately.
“I’m sorry.”
“No. You’re right.”
She sat down.
“When I found out, Noah and I had been together too. The dates were close.”
“Did Noah know?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I was ashamed.”
“Of me?”
“Of myself.”
Adrian looked away.
Elena continued.
“Noah had spent two years protecting me. Helping me. Loving me without asking me to forget you. And then I saw you for one night and became the woman I had spent years trying not to be.”
“You didn’t owe me anything.”
“I owed him honesty.”
“Yes.”
The answer hurt because it was fair.
“But before I could tell him, he was killed.”
Adrian’s anger softened.
“So you assumed.”
“I chose the answer that hurt fewer people.”
“And now?”
“Now I don’t know.”
Charles interrupted.
“Noah did.”
Elena turned.
“What?”
Charles’s voice was weak.
“Rachel said he left proof.”
“A paternity test?”
“Possibly.”
“How could he have done that before the baby was born?”
Torres answered.
“Noninvasive prenatal testing can establish paternity from maternal blood and the possible father’s DNA.”
Elena stared.
“I never gave him permission.”
Charles frowned.
“Did you have blood work?”
“Yes.”
“Then he may have used a sample.”
Elena felt another betrayal, though Noah was not alive to explain himself.
Adrian did not seize on the possibility.
He simply said, “We find Rachel.”
For the next twelve hours, they followed fragments.
Traffic cameras.
Hale vehicles.
Phone records.
A corporate jet booked but never used.
Eventually they found the convoy.
Rachel had been moved to an abandoned private hospital outside the city, a facility Hale’s company had purchased years earlier.
Torres insisted on federal tactical support.
Elena insisted on going.
Adrian objected.
“No.”
“She’s my sister.”
“You’re pregnant.”
“So is she.”
“That is exactly why you should stay here.”
Elena stepped closer.
“You don’t get to decide that for me.”
His jaw tightened.
Old Adrian would have ordered guards to restrain her.
This Adrian looked furious.
Then nodded.
“Vest.”
She blinked.
“What?”
“You go, you wear a vest and stay behind Torres’s team.”
It was the first time she realized he was learning.
Not how to stop caring.
How to care without controlling.
They reached the hospital after midnight.
Torres’s team entered first.
No gunfight.
No guards.
The facility seemed deserted.
That made Elena more nervous.
They found Rachel in a former maternity ward.
She was lying on a bed.
Alive.
Barely.
“Elena?”
Elena ran to her.
Rachel began sobbing.
“I’m sorry.”
“Later.”
“I killed Noah.”
“No. Cross killed him.”
“I gave them the address.”
“You made a terrible choice. We survive this first.”
Rachel clutched her stomach.
“My baby.”
Torres called medics.
Adrian checked the corridor.
Then Rachel grabbed Elena’s sleeve.
“Envelope.”
“Where?”
“Mattress.”
Elena lifted the corner.
Taped beneath it was the envelope from the video.
Adrian looked away as Elena opened it.
Inside was a laboratory report.
PATERNITY PROBABILITY: 0.00% — NOAH BENNETT.
Elena’s heart pounded.
A second page.
ALLEGED FATHER SAMPLE B.
Probability of paternity: 99.9987%.
No name.
Just sample B.
But attached was a photograph.
Adrian’s discarded drinking glass from the Boston hotel room.
Elena sat down.
Adrian saw her face.
“What?”
She handed him the paper.
He read it.
Once.
Then again.
His hand began to shake.
Neither of them spoke.
Rachel watched them.
“Noah knew.”
Elena’s voice broke.
“How?”
“He suspected after you told him you saw Adrian in Boston.”
“I never told him we—”
“He knew you.”
Rachel swallowed.
“He said you came home looking like someone had returned your heart and broken it at the same time.”
Tears slipped down Elena’s face.
“He wasn’t angry?”
“He was devastated.”
Rachel paused.
“But he said the baby deserved the truth.”
Adrian lowered the report.
His eyes were wet.
Elena had never seen him cry.
Not at his father’s funeral.
Not at his mother’s grave.
Not even when he thought Elena was dead.
Now his entire face seemed stripped of armor.
“The baby is mine.”
Elena could barely speak.
“Yes.”
A gunshot echoed.
Torres shouted from the hallway.
“Down!”
Adrian moved in front of Elena and Rachel.
A second shot struck the wall.
Cross appeared at the far end of the corridor.
He fired again.
Adrian raised his weapon.
Elena grabbed him.
“Don’t chase him.”
“He’ll escape.”
“That’s what he wants.”
Then Rachel screamed.
Her water had broken.
Blood soaked the sheet.
Medics rushed in.
“Placental abruption,” one said. “We need transport now.”
Rachel clutched Elena’s hand.
“Don’t leave.”
“I won’t.”
They moved Rachel toward the ambulance.
Outside, explosions suddenly lit the rear parking lot.
Two federal vehicles erupted in flames.
Cross had planned the escape route.
Torres shouted orders.
Adrian pulled Elena behind a concrete pillar.
Across the parking lot, Cross grabbed Charles.
Elena screamed.
Her father had followed them despite instructions.
Cross pressed a gun against Charles’s neck.
“Ledger!” he shouted.
Adrian aimed.
Too far.
Too dark.
Charles looked toward Elena.
For a moment, father and daughter simply stared at each other.
Then Charles did something nobody expected.
He drove his elbow backward into Cross’s ribs.
The gun fired.
Charles fell.
Adrian fired once.
Cross stumbled but escaped behind a vehicle.
Elena ran.
“Dad!”
Charles lay on the pavement.
Blood spread beneath him.
“No.”
She pressed both hands against the wound.
“Stay with me.”
Charles smiled.
“Elena.”
“Don’t.”
“Listen.”
“No.”
“I don’t have long.”
“You do.”
“You were always a terrible liar.”
She laughed and sobbed at once.
Adrian knelt beside her.
Charles looked at him.
“Take care of them.”
Adrian shook his head.
“She doesn’t belong to me.”
Charles smiled weakly.
“Good answer.”
Then he looked at Elena.
“I should have told you every day.”
“What?”
“That you were the only good thing I ever made.”
Her face collapsed.
“Dad.”
“I’m sorry.”
His hand slipped from hers.
Elena screamed his name.
But Charles Marlowe was gone.
Behind them, Rachel was being rushed toward an ambulance.
Ahead, Cross had disappeared.
And somewhere in Chicago, Preston Hale still had enough power to turn every institution against them.
Elena stood slowly.
Her hands were covered in her father’s blood.
Adrian reached for her.
She did not pull away.
For the first time in three years, she leaned into him.
Only for one second.
Then she looked toward the burning vehicles.
“No more running.”
May you like
Adrian nodded.
“No more running.”
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