Chapter 1 - The Blood on the Glass
The silver locket slipped from Liam’s small, dirt-smudged fingers and hit the mahogany floor with a hollow, agonizing thud.
Clack.
For a man who controlled billions of dollars with a flick of his wrist, who made hardened Wall Street executives sweat bullets with a single cold glance, I had never felt so utterly paralyzed. The floor beneath my Italian leather shoes felt like cracked ice.
“Mr. Miller?” Claire’s voice trembled, slicing through the heavy silence of the penthouse office. She was clutching her tablet so hard her knuckles were bone-white. “Did you hear me? Security... they just found blood. On the glass revolving doors downstairs. And a security guard is unresponsive in the basement stairwell.”
A violent shiver racked my frame—not from fear, but from the sudden, terrifying realization of what was happening. Emma was in danger. Or worse.
I crouched down, ignoring the high-powered corporate demeanor I had spent fifteen years building. I looked into Liam’s identical ice-blue eyes. They weren’t crying. That broke my heart more than if they had been wailing. They were dry, hollow eyes that had seen too much fear for four-year-old boys.
“Liam,” I said, my voice thick, struggling to keep it steady. “Where did Mommy leave you before you came into the building?”
Liam bit his lower lip, glancing nervously at his brother. Lucas buried his face in the red hoodie.
“A dark car,” Liam whispered. “A bad man with a loud voice. Mommy told us to run through the revolving doors as fast as we could. She said, ‘Don’t look back, boys. Run straight to the giant glass tower. Find Jason. Tell him he’s your father and he has to protect you.’ And then she screamed, Mr. Miller... she screamed real loud.”
My chest constricted as if a python had wrapped itself around my ribs.
Emma.
Five years ago, I walked away from her. I told her that a woman from a working-class neighborhood, a quiet girl who painted landscapes and believed in love over spreadsheets, didn't fit into the ruthless, high-society life I was engineering. I had traded her warmth for cold steel and empty dominance. I told her she was an anchor dragging me down.
Now, she was bleeding in the streets of Manhattan, and her only sanctuary was the man who had abandoned her.
“Claire,” I stood up, my corporate mask shredding away, replaced by something primal and feral. Every trace of the cold, unfeeling billionaire vanished. “Lock down Emerald Tower. No one enters. No one leaves. Call Chief Henderson of the NYPD directly. Tell him Jason Miller is offering a ten-million-dollar bounty for anyone who finds the vehicle that dropped these boys off. Move!”
Claire’s eyes widened in shock, but she didn’t hesitate. She grabbed her phone, her fingers flying across the screen.
I turned back to the twins. I scooped them both up into my arms—something I had never done with a child in my life. They smelled like rain, cheap laundry detergent, and vanilla. They instinctively wrapped their tiny arms around my neck, burying their faces into my bespoke charcoal suit jacket.
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“You’re safe now,” I whispered fiercely against Liam’s soft hair. “I swear to God, whoever took your mother is going to wish they were never born.”
Little did I know, the trap had only just been sprung, and the mastermind pulling the strings was someone sitting closer to me than I ever could have imagined.
