Chapter 2 - The House of Secrets
The Maybach sped through the rain-drenched streets of Manhattan, bypassing my penthouse downtown and heading straight for the ancestral Hail estate in Greenwich. It was a sprawling, heavily guarded fortress hidden behind wrought-iron gates and acres of ancient oaks—a place where my mother, Eleanor Hail, ruled like a Victorian matriarch.
Inside the quiet sanctuary of the car, the only sound was the soft, rhythmic hum of the engine and Posie’s quiet sniffles.
I sat across from Mave, handing her a dry woolen blanket from the vehicle's compartment. She wrapped it around her shoulders, her hands shaking so violently she could barely hold the plastic folder. Posie had fallen asleep against my chest, exhausted by the cold and the chaos. Feeling the steady, powerful beat of my heart against hers, I felt a fierce, terrifying protectiveness take root in my soul.
"Talk to me, Mave," I urged gently, keeping my voice low. "What did my mother do three years ago?"
Mave stared out the tinted window at the blurring city lights, her eyes hollow. "It was the day after you flew to London for the international summit. I found a positive test in the bathroom. I was terrified, Garrett, but I was also... so happy. I thought you'd be thrilled."
A cold dread pooled in my stomach. "You tried to call me."
"I called you fifty times," she whispered, a tear finally breaking free and tracking down her pale cheek. "Your phone went straight to voicemail. Then, that evening, a black town car pulled up outside my apartment. Two men in suits didn't even knock; they just walked in like they owned the place."
"Eleanor's hounds," I growled, my fists clenching so hard my nails bit into my palms.
"Your mother was waiting in the back of the car," Mave continued, her voice trembling. "She didn't yell. She didn't threaten to kill me. She was terrifyingly calm. She showed me a thick dossier—photos of my mother's medical treatments, my brother's student debts, records of every fragile thing holding my family together. And then she laid it out for me."
She looked up, meeting my eyes with a gaze full of tormented history.
"She told me that you were being groomed for the Ashford alliance. She told me that a girl from a bankrupt background with a dying mother and a drowning family would be chewed up and spit out by our world. But the part that broke me... she swore on your life, Garrett, that if I stayed, she would make sure you never knew about the baby. She said she would institutionalize me for a fabricated mental breakdown, take the child the moment it was born, and ensure I spent the rest of my life in a concrete box where light never reached."
The air in the car turned sub-zero. The sheer, calculated cruelty of it took my breath away. That was Eleanor Hail—a woman who viewed human beings as chess pieces, sacrificing pawns without a second thought.
"And you believed she would do it?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.
"I didn't have a choice," Mave wept softly, burying her face in her hands. "She had the power, the lawyers, the judges in her pocket. She gave me an envelope with fifty thousand dollars—just enough to clear my family's debts—and a burner phone. She made me record a video message to you saying I never loved you and that I was running off with a college ex. She said if I ever breathed a word of the truth, or if I ever tried to contact you, she would bury both me and my child so deep nobody would ever find our bones."
I stared at her, the blood roaring in my ears. Three years of anger, three years of cold resentment, three years of wondering what kind of monster she was for walking out on me—all of it washed away, replaced by an incandescent, murderous rage directed at the woman sitting in the mansion waiting for us.
"She played God," I whispered, my voice chilling even Wesley in the front seat.
May you like
"Yes," Mave said, pulling Posie closer as the little girl stirred. "And now... now you've blown up your wedding for us. Your mother is going to declare total war, Garrett. You have no idea what she’s capable of when she loses control."
"Let her try," I said, leaning forward to brush a damp lock of hair from Posie's forehead. "She built this empire on secrets and fear. Today, I'm going to burn it to the ground."
