Chapter 2 - The House Built on Ashes
Night had fallen completely over the rural farmlands of Tennessee. Rain began to slick the asphalt, reflecting the red glare of my tail lights as I navigated the winding gravel trails.
My headlights cut through the gloom, catching the faded wooden post of an old, neglected farm property. Tucked behind a row of overgrown oak trees sat a tiny, dilapidated tenant house with a rusted metal roof and a porch light flickering weakly against the dark.
Parked near the porch was an old wooden pull-cart filled with crushed aluminum cans.
It was her.
I pulled off to the side, killed the engine, and stepped out into the damp chill. My expensive Italian leather shoes sank into the thick mud, but I didn't care.
As I approached the small porch, the faint, sweet sound of a lullaby drifted through the thin wooden walls.
Maren's voice.
It was the same soft melody she used to sing when we were twenty-two, broke, and living in a tiny studio apartment above a mechanic's garage long before I became a CEO.
I climbed the rickety steps. My hand hovered over the door before I knocked softly.
The singing stopped abruptly.
A moment later, the door creaked open a few inches, held by a brass security chain. Maren’s face appeared in the narrow gap. The low light of a single floor lamp framed her soft features.
When she saw me, her expression didn't change to anger. There was no rage in her eyes—only that same haunting, crushing pity.
"Rowan," she said quietly. "You shouldn't be here. Tessa will wonder where you are."
"Maren..." My voice broke completely. "Please. Open the door."
"Why?" She whispered, her voice steady but laced with a pain so deep it sounded ancient. "Are you here to throw more twenty-dollar bills at me? Or did you come to make sure I haven't died yet?"
"I know," I breathed, my forehead pressing against the cold wooden doorframe. "Maren, God forgive me... I know."
She went completely silent. Through the crack, I saw her hands begin to tremble.
"What do you know, Rowan?"
"I went to Vance," I confessed, tears blurring my vision for the first time in ten years. "I saw the original files. I saw the bank transfers from Tessa. I saw the witness statement about the hotel. I saw... I saw the birth certificates, Maren."
The door swung open fully.
Maren stood before me in the dim doorway, her eyes filled with tears that she refused to let fall. Inside the tiny living room, two wooden cribs sat near a small heater. Inside slept a boy and a girl, their light curls glowing under the soft lamp.
"You're a year too late, Rowan," she whispered.
"They're my children," I stammered, stepping inside despite her silence. "The curls... the timing... they are mine, aren't they?"
"They are my children," Maren corrected fiercely, her voice dropping into a desperate hush to avoid waking the babies. "You gave up the right to call them yours the night you dragged me down the front steps of our home while your security guards threw my clothes into the rain! You called me a thief! You called me an unfaithful liar!"
"I was blind!" I fell to my knees right there on her worn hardwood floor, uncaring of the mud on my trousers. "I was an arrogant fool! Tessa orchestrated everything, Maren! She framed you, she paid Vance, she bought off the witnesses!"
Maren looked down at me, her chest heaving as she fought for breath. "Do you think I didn't tell you that? I screamed it at you until my throat bled! But you believed her because she had money, influence, and a family name that helped your company's board of directors!"
She turned away, walking over to the cribs and gently placing a hand over the sleeping boy's back.
"I know about the paper," I said quietly from the floor.
Maren froze instantly. Her entire body went rigid.
"What paper?" She asked, her voice dangerously quiet.
"The clinic file," I replied, standing up slowly. "The document Vance kept hidden. The file that mentions... the third child."
Maren turned around, her face pale, her lips trembling uncontrollably. "What... what did the file say?"
"It said you had triplets," I whispered, taking a cautious step closer. "And it had a note written by Tessa. She told Vance to make sure I never found out what happened to our third baby."
Maren dropped her face into her hands and let out a sound so desolate, so choked with agony, that it tore through me like a blade.
"She told me my baby died, Rowan," Maren sobbed, collapsing onto the edge of a worn sofa. "The doctors told me my second boy didn't make it. They said his lungs didn't develop. They wouldn't even let me hold him... they swept him away before I could even see his face!"
I sat beside her, grabbing her shaking hands. "Maren... look at me. What if he didn't die?"
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She lifted her head, her teardrop-stained eyes wide with horror and hope. "What are you saying?"
"Tessa's note didn't say the baby died," I said, my heart hammering against my ribs. "It said 'make sure he never learns what happened to the third baby.' Maren... our child might still be alive."
