Chapter 2 - The Stranger in the Waiting RoomAdrian Holloway hadn't slept a full night since the rainy Tuesday in Chicago when he walked back to Vivian’s apartment only to find a bare room, a canceled lease, and a superintendent who didn't even know her forwarding address.
Eleanor had lied. He found out a year later—after tearing his mother’s pristine world apart piece by piece, threatening to disown the family name, and stripping himself of his inheritance. He had spent four years searching for Vivian Carter across every state board of medicine, every nursing registry, every ghost town from New York to California.
Now, sitting in the unassuming, fluorescent-lit waiting room of St. Jude’s Clinic in Garden View, Adrian didn't look like a billionaire heir.
He looked like a man who had nothing left to lose.
He wore a dark wool coat, his hair slightly disheveled, his eyes bloodshot from flying in on a private jet and driving straight here. He wasn't here as a donor. The foundation's check was just a key to get past the locked doors.
"Excuse me, mister?"
Adrian looked down.
A little boy, no older than four, stood beside his chair. The boy was wearing a blue dinosaur backpack that was far too big for his small frame. He had scraped his knee, a small patch of blood soaking through his jeans, but he wasn't crying. Instead, he was staring up at Adrian with an intensity that made the breath catch in Adrian's throat.
Those eyes.
Adrian felt the room tilt. They weren't just gray; they carried a quiet, searching depth that looked straight through his tailored suit and into his fractured soul.
"Hey there, buddy," Adrian said, kneeling down instinctively despite the expensive fabric of his trousers. "Did you take a tumble?"
The little boy didn't answer right away. He reached out a small, warm hand and touched the lapel of Adrian’s coat, right where a silver cufflink gleamed.
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"My mom says big men in fancy coats always leave when things get hard," the boy said, his voice entirely too serious for a four-year-old. "Why did you never come home?"
Adrian froze. The blood rushed in his ears like a roaring freight train.
