Chương 1
"""The man in the charcoal coat reached for the smaller newborn, and Alexander Blackwood drove the heel of his polished shoe into the open SUV door hard enough to slam it against the man’s forearm.
Metal cracked through the winter street.
The man jerked back with a curse.
The little girl staggered away from both of them, boots slipping on the wet ice, two lavender-wrapped infants pressed desperately against her chest.
“DON’T LET HIM TAKE YOUR BABIES!”
Alexander stopped breathing.
For half a second, everything around him seemed to lose its order—the idling cars outside Blackwood Tower, the hiss of tires over slush, the doorman staring from beneath the awning, the white vapor leaving the girl’s mouth in frantic bursts.
Then instinct returned.
Alexander stepped sideways so his body blocked the man from the children.
“Marcus.”
His bodyguard was already moving.
Marcus Hale, thirty-eight, broad-shouldered beneath a black winter overcoat, came around the rear of Alexander’s vehicle without drawing the pistol under his coat. Too many people. Too many windows. Too many phones already rising in strangers’ hands.
The man by the SUV flexed his gloved fingers. His expression remained cold in a way Alexander disliked more than open anger.
He wasn’t surprised.
He had expected resistance.
Alexander kept one hand low beside him.
“What did you just say?”
The child’s messy light-brown hair was dusted with melting snow. He knew that face.
It took him another second.
“Lily?”
Her lower lip trembled. She tightened both arms around the newborns.
“Mom said Alexander Blackwood is their father.”
Something shifted inside his chest, not pain exactly. A misplaced beat.
The charcoal-coated man took one step around the front of his SUV.
Marcus matched it.
“Stay where you are,” Marcus said.
The man ignored him.
Alexander crouched in front of Lily without turning his back completely on the threat.
“What happened to Claire?”
Lily was breathing too fast to answer.
One of the infants made a small, thin sound beneath the lavender blanket.
Alexander reached toward the edge of the fabric, then stopped before touching it.
“Are they warm?”
Lily nodded too quickly.
“She said keep them covered.”
“Okay.”
“She said don’t let anybody take them.”
“I won’t.”
Her eyes moved to the man behind him.
“He took Mom.”
The words came out almost soundlessly.
Alexander’s jaw tightened.
“Who?”
Lily swallowed.
“I don’t know.”
Her small hand moved beneath one blanket, fumbling near the collar of her worn brown coat.
A silver chain appeared.
Alexander recognized the locket before she opened it.
He had bought it six years earlier from a tiny jewelry store in Boston because Claire had stood outside the window pretending she wasn’t looking at it.
Lily held it out.
Alexander took the locket between two fingers.
Inside was an old photograph.
Claire Monroe was laughing at whoever had taken it, her dark hair blown across one cheek. Alexander stood beside her, younger by only a few years but different enough that the face looked almost borrowed. He remembered the afternoon. A rooftop charity event in Cambridge. Too much wind. Claire had complained that rich people apparently believed canapés were a meal.
His thumb stopped against the edge of the picture.
“Claire…”
“She said you’d know this.”
The man behind him spoke.
“Give me the children, Blackwood.”
Alexander closed the locket.
He rose slowly.
“Take one more step.”
The man’s eyes shifted toward Marcus, then toward the pedestrians gathering twenty yards away.
“I’m trying to prevent this from becoming worse.”
“You reached for an infant.”
“I was told to bring them back.”
“By whom?”
No answer.
Alexander’s voice dropped.
“Who sent you?”
The stranger almost smiled.
“You’re asking the wrong question.”
A black SUV appeared at the far end of the block.
Lily saw it before Alexander did.
Her entire body changed.
Not screaming. Not running.
She simply stopped moving.
Alexander looked at her.
“Is that another one?”
Lily whispered, “They found us.”
Marcus opened the rear door of Alexander’s vehicle.
“Inside. Now.”
Alexander bent toward Lily.
“I’m going to take one baby. You keep the other one. I’m not taking her away from you.”
Lily shook her head violently.
“No.”
“Okay. Then I’ll help you hold both.”
“No.”
Alexander glanced once at the approaching SUV.
He had negotiated acquisitions with people who threatened lawsuits, careers, and sometimes livelihoods while smiling across polished tables. None of that had prepared him for asking permission from a terrified five-year-old in the snow.
“Lily, look at me.”
Eventually she did.
“You know me.”
A small nod.
“You remember my apartment?”
Another nod.
“You broke a lamp there.”
“It was ugly.”
Despite everything, Marcus looked away for a fraction of a second.
Alexander almost laughed. The sound never made it out.
“Yes. It was ugly. I need you to trust me for ten seconds. I’m not taking either baby from you. I’m helping all three of you get into the car.”
The second SUV was close enough now that he could see two people in front.
Lily hesitated.
Then she nodded once.
Alexander slid one forearm beneath the lower infant without lifting her away, taking part of the weight. Lily kept both babies against herself while he supported them together.
They moved three careful steps.
The charcoal-coated man came forward.
Marcus shoved him back against the closed SUV.
“Not today.”
Alexander got Lily inside.
He climbed in beside her.
Marcus entered the front passenger seat, and the driver pulled into traffic before the door had fully latched.
Through the rear window Alexander saw the man in charcoal staring after them.
The second SUV stopped beside him.
He didn’t chase.
That bothered Alexander.
Lily had curled into the corner of the rear seat, shielding the infants with her own body. Her muddy old boots had left wet marks on cream leather. Alexander found himself staring at the marks because they were easier to understand than anything else.
“Where is Claire?” he asked.
Lily looked toward the window.
May you like
Snow slid diagonally over the glass.
“They found Mom last night.”
