Chapter 4 - The Confession in the Fever DreamMidnight brought a deeper, more violent phase to the storm. Lightning fractured the sky, turning the stained glass windows of the mansion into bleeding mosaics of color.
In the Rosewood Suite, Anna began to toss and turn. Her brow beaded with cold sweat, and her hands clenched the Egyptian cotton sheets as if she were drowning.
"No... Grandma, don't leave me... please..." she whimpered, her voice cracking with pure terror.
Robert was instantly out of his chair, kneeling beside the bed. He gently caught her small, hot hand in his large, calloused palm. "Anna. I'm here. You're safe now. I've got you."
The sound of his voice seemed to pull her through the dark waters of her delirium. Her eyelids fluttered open, revealing eyes the exact shade of hazel as Elena’s. She didn't see the billionaire real estate tycoon; she saw a lifeline.
"You... you look like the picture," she whispered, her voice barely a rasp.
"What picture, sweetheart?" Robert asked softly, stroking her tangled hair back from her forehead.
"Momma's... locked box," Anna breathed, coughing weakly. "She told me... before she got too weak to talk... she said if I ever starved... if Grandma Rose couldn't buy the medicine... I had to walk up the hill to the big black gates."
Robert felt a lump form in his throat that threatened to choke him. "Your momma... she told you about me?"
"She said... your name was Robert. She said you were a prince once... before the bad men took everything." Tears spilled over Anna’s eyelashes, tracking through the dirt on her cheeks. "She said... 'Tell him his little girl is waiting.' But Grandma Rose said we shouldn't bother rich people because rich people have cold hearts."
Robert closed his eyes, a searing pain slicing through his chest. Cold hearts. He had spent ten years freezing his own soul, believing the world owed him nothing but compliance, while his own flesh and blood was freezing on a street corner not a mile from his front door.
"My heart isn't cold anymore, Anna," Robert vowed, pressing her small hand against his cheek. "Tell me... where is Grandma Rose? Who took care of you after your mother... after Elena passed?"
Anna’s eyes widened in confusion. "Momma didn't pass away in the hospital, Mr. Robert... at least, not then."
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Robert’s heart stopped. "What did you say?"
"Momma hid me," Anna whispered, her breathing growing shallow. "She gave me to Rose—her old nanny—the night of the crash. She said her father... Grandpa Victor... was coming to kill us. She made us disappear."
