Because believing that was easier than believing his family had taken her.
The library door opened.
Emma stepped out, dragging the blanket behind her.
“Mister Lucas?” she asked. “Is my mommy okay?”
He looked at her face again.
The eyes.
The curve of the mouth.
The stubborn lift of the chin.
Not Anna’s.
His.
The world inside Lucas Blackwood cracked straight down the middle.
He knelt before her for the third time that night, but this time his hand shook.
“We’re bringing your mother here,” he said.
Emma’s eyes filled. “You’re not mad?”
“No.”
“Because I came instead?”
“Because I got mud on your floor?”
Lucas looked down at the tiny footprints drying across the marble.
Then he did something that made Harold, standing at the end of the hall, forget how to breathe.
Lucas Blackwood reached out and gently touched the child’s wet hair.
“Emma,” he said, his voice rough, “you could cover this whole house in mud and I wouldn’t be mad.”
She blinked at him.
“Why?”
Lucas could not answer.
Not yet.
Because outside the estate gates, enemies were moving.
Because inside his own house, someone had tried to kill him.
Because upstairs, in a locked safe, Lucas kept documents that could start a war.
And because somewhere between Anna’s hidden folder and Emma’s brave little voice, he had realized the truth.
The bomb had not been meant only for him.
It had been meant to kill the man before he ever discovered he was a father.
Part 3
Anna Carter arrived at Blackwood Estate shortly after midnight in an ambulance that Lucas owned but never admitted owning.
She was unconscious, pale as candle wax, her hair damp against her cheeks. Emma tried to run to her, but Lucas stopped her gently.
“Let the doctor help first.”
“She looks dead,” Emma whispered.
“She is not dead,” Lucas said, with such cold certainty that even death might have reconsidered entering the room.
Doctors took Anna into the east bedroom. Nurses moved in and out. Machines appeared. Bags of fluid hung from polished brass hooks that had once held silk curtains. Emma sat on the hallway floor outside the room, refusing every bed offered to her.
Lucas sat beside her.
Not in a chair.
On the floor.
His guards pretended not to notice.
At two in the morning, Marco Bell arrived.
He came through the front doors wearing a black raincoat and a worried expression polished to perfection.
“Lucas,” he said, spreading his hands. “I came as soon as I heard. A child? A sick woman? What the hell is going on?”
Lucas stood.
Emma’s small fingers caught his sleeve before she realized she had done it.
Marco noticed.
For one brief instant, something ugly flashed behind his eyes.
Lucas saw it.
He always saw it.
“Where were you tonight?” Lucas asked.
Marco frowned. “Home.”
“Alone?”
“With my driver.”
“Interesting,” Lucas said. “Your driver was found twenty minutes ago behind Anna Carter’s building.”
Marco went very still.
The hallway changed temperature.
Harold stepped back. The guards shifted their hands near their jackets.
Marco laughed once. “That’s impossible.”
Lucas walked toward him.
“What was he doing there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why did you recommend Anna Carter for a cleaning position in my house?”
Marco’s face tightened.
“I didn’t.”
Lucas removed the damp resume from his coat and held it up.
“Your office number is listed as the reference.”
Marco stared at the paper.
Then he made the fatal mistake of looking at Emma.
Lucas moved so fast that nobody saw his hand until Marco was slammed against the wall, Lucas’s forearm across his throat.
Emma gasped.
Lucas did not raise his voice.
“Look at me,” he said.
Marco wheezed. “You’re making a mistake.”
“I made my mistake nine years ago when I believed Anna left willingly.”
Marco’s eyes widened.
There it was.
Recognition.
Confession without words.
Lucas leaned closer. “Who ordered it?”
Marco struggled. “Lucas—”
“Who ordered Anna to disappear?”
Marco said nothing.
Lucas pressed harder.
Emma’s voice suddenly broke through the hallway.
“Please don’t hurt him.”
Lucas froze.
Not because Marco deserved mercy.
Because Emma had asked.
Slowly, Lucas released him.
Marco coughed, sliding down the wall. For a moment, he looked beaten.
Then he smiled.
It was small.
Cruel.
Victorious.
“You still don’t understand,” Marco rasped. “This wasn’t about killing you.”
Lucas said nothing.
Marco lifted his eyes.
“It was about bringing her here.”
The house went silent.
Lucas felt the trap one second before it closed.
From inside the east bedroom, a nurse screamed.
Lucas turned.
The lights went out.
The mansion dropped into darkness.
Gunfire erupted from the west wing.
Emma screamed.
Lucas grabbed her and pulled her behind him as his guards shouted, moving through shadows and muzzle flashes. Glass shattered somewhere below. Harold barked orders. The storm outside swallowed the sound of men dying.