CHAPTER 3 – She Was Never Supposed to Survive
By sunrise...
Emma Carter no longer had a normal life.
Federal agents occupied her apartment.
Black SUVs lined her street.
Neighbors peeked through curtains.
Nobody understood why America's youngest billionaire had personally ordered a twenty-four-hour security detail for an emergency room nurse.
Neither did Emma.
"I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself."
Ethan looked directly into her eyes.
"No."
"They already know your face."
"They'll assume you can identify them."
She felt cold.
"You mean..."
"They'll come after me?"
"They already have."
He slid a tablet across the table.
The screen displayed security footage from outside her apartment.
A black sedan had circled her building four times before dawn.
Another image appeared.
Someone had broken into her locker at the hospital.
Then another.
Her patient records had been illegally accessed.
Finally...
A photograph taken almost twenty-six years earlier.
A smiling little girl holding balloons.
Emma.
Standing beside her mother.
Behind them...
Talking to her father...
Was Ethan's late father.
Emma stared in disbelief.
"That's impossible."
Ethan slowly nodded.
"My father funded the clinic where your mother worked."
"My mother?" she whispered.
"I never knew that."
"You weren't supposed to."
He placed an old envelope on the table.
Yellow with age.
Unopened.
Written across the front in faded handwriting were seven words that changed everything.
For Emma... if anything happens to me.
Her hands trembled.
"My mother died twenty years ago."
Ethan swallowed.
"She didn't die in an accident."
The room fell silent.
Outside...
One sniper quietly took position on the rooftop across the street.
Inside...
Emma opened the envelope.
The first sentence made the blood drain from her face.
May you like
"If you're reading this, someone has finally discovered who your real father is..."
END OF CHAPTER 3...
The truth was far bigger than either of them imagined.
