Chapter 3 - THE WAKE-UP CALL
By the time our Bentley glided through the wrought-iron gates of my estate in the upscale northern suburbs of Chicago, the kids were fast asleep.
The rhythmic, soft breathing of Leo, Toby, and Mason filled the spacious interior of the car. Julian and I carefully carried them inside, tucking them into their respective beds in the warm, softly lit nursery upstairs.
When I finally walked down the grand mahogany staircase into my home office, Julian was already pouring two glasses of single-malt scotch at the wet bar. He handed me one without a word.
"You handled that like a general facing a firing squad," Julian said, leaning against the edge of the sleek glass desk. "Though I suspect the war has only just begun."
I took a slow sip of the scotch, feeling the liquid fire burn away the lingering chill of O’Hare Airport. My hands were still trembling slightly.
"He's going to find out everything," I murmured, staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the sprawling, manicured lawn. "He’s Blake Harrington. It won't take his private investigators twenty-four hours to connect the birth records, the DNA markers, and my company's patent filings."
"Let him try," Julian replied calmly, his eyes narrowing. "Legally, he relinquished all parental rights when he signed the uncontested, no-fault divorce decree five years ago under coercion and fraud. Furthermore, your company, Veridian Tech, holds the patents on the exact next-generation solar grid technology that Harrington Global has been trying to acquire for the last eighteen months. If he tries to play dirty in court, we won't just fight him for custody—we'll bankrupt his entire empire."
I turned away from the window, looking at Julian with a mixture of gratitude and exhaustion.
"I don't want a bloodbath, Julian. I just want to protect my boys. They've never known a father. They've only known me."
"And they're better off for it," Julian said firmly. "But Blake isn't going to walk away. You saw his eyes back at the terminal. That wasn't just shock—that was obsession. He spent five years believing he was the wronged party, the victim of a cheating wife. Now he realizes he was the architect of his own destruction. His ego won't let him rest."
Julian was right. Blake Harrington didn't know how to lose. Everything he wanted, he bought, conquered, or destroyed. The idea that he had accidentally thrown away his own flesh and blood—and that those children were now brilliant, thriving, and completely independent of him—would drive him completely insane.
True to form, my phone buzzed on the desk at exactly 11:45 PM.
An unknown number.
I stared at the screen as it lit up the dark room. I didn't need to answer it to know who was on the other end.
I picked up the phone and pressed speaker.
"You're wasting your time, Blake," I said into the empty room.
For a long moment, there was only heavy, ragged breathing on the line. Then, Blake’s voice came through—low, rough, and trembling with a terrifying intensity.
"Open the front gate, Emma."
May you like
My heart skipped a beat. "What?"
"I'm standing outside your security gate," Blake whispered fiercely. "And if you don't open it right now, I'll bring the entire gate down with a bulldozer. We are going to talk. Tonight."
