Chapter 5 - THE OTHER CHILDBy sunrise, Hawthorne House was surrounded by Adrian’s security team.
Now, four years after her death, she was still controlling one.
The bracelet sat on Elena’s kitchen table.
Nobody touched it.
Ava had been taken into the bedroom by Rachel while Samuel’s team searched the building.
Adrian stood near the window.
Elena watched him.
“Did you know she suspected?”
“No.”
“Adrian.”
“I swear.”
He turned.
“My mother told me you left because you wanted a different life.”
Elena stared at him.
“She told me you stopped looking.”
“She showed me a letter.”
“What letter?”
He remembered it vividly.
Cream stationery.
Elena’s handwriting.
Or what he had believed was Elena’s handwriting.
Adrian, I cannot live inside your world. Please do not follow me.
“She forged it,” Elena whispered.
Adrian’s face hardened.
“I spent a year trying to find you anyway.”
“You did?”
“I hired investigators.”
Elena blinked.
“My mother convinced them you had left the country.”
“I was in Queens.”
“I know that now.”
Elena sat slowly.
For ten years, she had believed Adrian had abandoned her.
For ten years, Adrian had believed Elena had deliberately disappeared.
One woman had created both lies.
But Victoria was dead.
So who was continuing them?
Samuel entered.
“We found no intruder inside the building.”
“And the delivery man?” Adrian asked.
“Camera caught him. Baseball cap, sunglasses. Face obscured.”
“Vehicle?”
“Stolen.”
Elena folded her arms.
“So whoever this is planned it.”
“Yes.”
Adrian looked at the bracelet again.
“Search my mother’s archived files.”
Samuel nodded.
“Every email. Every employee. Every payment from the year Elena disappeared.”
“That may take time.”
“Start with private security.”
Samuel left.
Elena stared at Adrian.
“What happens to Ava now?”
“You decide.”
She looked surprised.
“You’re not going to insist?”
“I want to.”
He gave a tired half-smile.
“But I’m beginning to understand that wanting control and deserving it are different things.”
Elena looked away.
That sounded more like the man she had loved.
Not the billionaire.
Adrian.
The young hotel manager who once ate grilled cheese on milk crates with her after midnight because they were both too broke and exhausted to care.
“I think she should stay home from school,” Elena said.
“Agreed.”
“And nobody announces anything publicly.”
“Agreed.”
“No lawyers showing up with custody papers.”
His expression changed.
“I would never—”
“I need you to say it.”
He understood.
“No custody fight.”
Elena breathed out.
“Thank you.”
Adrian glanced toward the hallway.
“Can I see her before I leave?”
“She wants you to stay.”
His face softened.
“She said that?”
“She asked if you were leaving.”
Adrian swallowed.
“I have nowhere more important to be.”
For the first time in years, Elena believed him.
Ava emerged wearing socks and carrying a telescope magazine.
“Do billionaires know constellations?”
Adrian nearly choked.
Elena stared at Rachel.
Rachel shrugged.
“I didn’t tell her.”
Ava grinned.
“I googled him.”
Adrian laughed.
A real laugh.
“Yes. Some billionaires know constellations.”
“Name five.”
Elena leaned against the doorway.
Adrian sat on the rug.
“Orion.”
“Easy.”
“Cassiopeia.”
“Easy.”
“Cygnus.”
“Okay.”
“Lyra.”
Ava narrowed her eyes.
“One more.”
“Ursa Minor.”
Ava nodded.
“You can stay.”
Adrian looked at Elena.
Something inside her cracked open.
For the next hour, father and daughter sat on the floor talking about stars.
Ava showed him her science projects.
Adrian showed her a photograph of an observatory he had visited in Chile.
She asked whether he had a dog.
He said no.
She said that was disappointing.
At midnight, Ava fell asleep with her head against his shoulder.
Adrian did not move.
Elena watched him stare down at their daughter as though he were afraid breathing too hard might wake him from a dream.
“She’s beautiful,” he whispered.
“Yes.”
“She looks like you.”
“Her stubbornness is yours.”
He smiled.
“I’ll accept that.”
Then his phone rang.
Samuel.
Adrian carefully moved Ava onto the couch.
“What did you find?”
Samuel’s voice came through.
“A name.”
Adrian stepped toward the window.
“Who?”
“Thomas Rowe.”
Adrian frowned.
“Celeste’s father?”
“Yes.”
“What does he have to do with my mother?”
“He was Victoria Vale’s personal attorney for eighteen years.”
Adrian went still.
Elena heard the name.
Her face changed.
“Rowe?”
Adrian looked at her.
“You know him?”
“I met him once.”
“When?”
“The day your mother came to my apartment.”
Adrian’s grip tightened around the phone.
“He was there?”
“Yes.”
Suddenly Celeste was no longer an unrelated jealous girlfriend.
Her family had been inside the secret from the beginning.
Samuel continued.
“There’s more. Victoria transferred two million dollars to Thomas Rowe ten years ago.”
“For what?”
“No description.”
“When?”
Samuel answered.
“Three days after Elena disappeared.”
Adrian’s blood turned cold.
“And Celeste?”
“We traced her route tonight. She met Thomas at Hawthorne House.”
Elena’s breath caught.
Her phone buzzed.
Another unknown message.
This time there was no photograph.
Just one sentence.
YOUR DAUGHTER IS NOT THE ONLY CHILD VICTORIA VALE HID.
Elena stared.
Adrian read over her shoulder.
“What does that mean?”
Neither knew.
May you like
But somewhere inside the dead woman’s past, another secret was waiting.
And it was about to destroy everything they thought they understood.
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