Chapter 2 - The Woman Adrian BuriedMarcus drew his handgun before Adrian could turn around.
Glass exploded across the pavement.
His driver slammed on the brakes.
“What the hell?” Marcus shouted.
Adrian looked up from his phone just as a second stone struck the hood.
A boy stood in the middle of the narrow road.
Eight years old, maybe.
Thin.
Barely protected by a torn gray T-shirt and jeans several inches too short.
A purple bruise darkened his left cheek.
His lower lip was split.
But the boy didn’t run when Marcus opened the driver’s door.
Instead, he grabbed another rock.
“You left us!” he screamed.
Adrian froze.
Marcus stepped toward him.
“Put that down.”
“No!”
The boy’s hand shook.
Tears streaked through the dirt on his face.
“You left us, and now my mom is dying!”
Adrian opened his door.
The August heat hit him immediately.
They were less than twenty minutes from Manhattan, yet the forgotten industrial neighborhood looked like another world—abandoned warehouses, rusted fences, broken sidewalks.
Adrian had only come because one of Hale Global’s charitable housing projects was scheduled to break ground nearby.
He had never seen this child before.
“Who is your mother?” Adrian asked.
The boy stared at him with such hatred that Adrian felt something tighten in his chest.
“You know.”
“I don’t.”
“Liar!”
The boy hurled the final stone.
Marcus caught his wrist before he could throw it.
The child screamed.
“Don’t touch me!”
Adrian noticed the bruises around his arm.
Finger-shaped bruises.
“Marcus.”
His driver released him immediately.
Adrian crouched.
“What’s your name?”
The boy’s breathing was ragged.
He looked terrified now, as if his anger had been the only thing keeping him upright.
“Ethan.”
The world seemed to tilt.
Adrian hadn’t heard that name spoken aloud in years.
Not like that.
Not from a child.
Seven years earlier, Adrian had chosen that exact name for his newborn son.
Ethan Hale.
Two days later, Adrian had flown to London after his father suffered a massive stroke and Hale Global stood hours from financial collapse.
Three days after Adrian left, his fiancée, Olivia Mercer, supposedly drove off Ravenswood Bridge during a storm.
Her car burned after hitting the rocks below.
Police recovered Olivia’s handbag.
They recovered the baby blanket Adrian’s mother had embroidered.
They recovered enough evidence to convince everyone that Olivia and newborn Ethan had been inside.
No bodies were ever given to Adrian.
Authorities said the fire and river had made identification impossible.
He had buried two empty coffins.
Adrian stared at the child.
“That’s not funny.”
“I’m not laughing.”
Ethan shoved his hand into his pocket.
He pulled out a torn photograph.
The edges had been folded so many times they were almost white.
He thrust it toward Adrian.
“Mom said if anything happened, I had to find you.”
Adrian took it.
His knees almost gave way.
The photograph showed a hospital room.
Olivia stood beside the bed, exhausted and smiling.
And sitting beside her was Adrian.
Twenty-nine years old.
Holding a newborn.
Adrian remembered the photograph being taken.
He remembered Olivia teasing him because he looked terrified to hold his own son.
He remembered kissing the baby’s forehead after the camera clicked.
That photograph had never been made public.
Adrian turned it over.
Olivia’s handwriting covered the back.
Adrian, if Ethan ever gives you this, believe him before you believe anyone else.
Adrian stopped breathing.
Marcus whispered, “Mr. Hale?”
Adrian looked at the boy again.
The shape of his eyes.
The small indentation in his chin.
The left eyebrow that lifted higher when he was angry.
His own childhood photographs flashed through Adrian’s mind.
“Ethan?”
The boy’s face crumpled.
Then he punched Adrian squarely in the chest.
“You took too long!”
Adrian didn’t stop him.
Ethan hit him again.
And again.
“My mom waited for you!”
His fists grew weaker.
“She said you’d come.”
Another punch.
“But you never came.”
Adrian caught him as the boy collapsed against him.
For seven years, Adrian Hale had believed grief was the worst pain a man could survive.
He had been wrong.
“Where is Olivia?”
Ethan pulled away.
“At our apartment.”
“Take me there.”
Fear entered the boy’s eyes.
“We have to hurry.”
“Why?”
Ethan looked behind him.
Only then did Adrian notice the black sedan parked half a block away.
Its engine was running.
The instant Adrian looked at it, the sedan pulled away.
Fast.
Ethan went pale.
“They found me.”
“Who?”
“The men who hurt Mom.”
Adrian stood.
Marcus was already reaching beneath his jacket.
“Get in the car.”
“No.” Ethan backed away. “Mom said never get into cars with strangers.”
Adrian almost broke at the word.
“I’m not a stranger.”
“You are to me.”
The words cut deeper than anything Ethan could have thrown.
Adrian nodded.
“You’re right.”
He handed the photograph back.
“Then you lead the way.”
They walked three blocks.
Ethan moved quickly despite a limp.
Adrian noticed every bruise.
Every time the boy flinched at a passing car.
Every time he glanced over his shoulder.
Finally, they reached a crumbling six-story apartment building.
The elevator was broken.
Ethan ran up four flights.
Adrian followed.
Apartment 4C stood open.
“Mom?”
Ethan rushed inside.
“Mom!”
Adrian entered behind him.
A lamp was overturned.
A chair had been smashed.
Blood stained the kitchen floor.
And beside the couch lay Olivia Mercer.
Alive.
Barely.
Her face was pale.
Her dark hair spread across the floor.
There was blood near her temple.
For seven years Adrian had dreamed about seeing her again.
In every dream, she smiled.
In reality, Olivia opened her eyes, saw him standing over her—
—and began to cry.
“You finally found us.”
Then she looked past him toward the hallway.
Her expression changed instantly.
“Adrian…”
Her voice was barely a whisper.
“They know Ethan found you.”
May you like
A floorboard creaked outside the apartment.
And a man’s shadow appeared beneath the door.
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