Chapter 2 - The Photograph Beneath My MattressNathan read the message twice.
The second time, his expression became so cold that even the security chief took half a step backward.
“Where did this come from?” Nathan asked.
“The archive terminal in your east wing. The message was transmitted through three encrypted servers. Our technical team is tracing the source.”
“Do it faster.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And find out who took this photograph.”
The security chief nodded, but Nathan wasn't finished.
“Every entrance, every employee, every delivery vehicle. I want the entire security system examined. Nobody touches a camera, a computer, or a file without my permission.”
“Yes, sir.”
The man hurried away.
Nathan shut the door.
For several seconds, he stared at the photograph on his phone.
I recognized the image immediately.
It had been taken outside St. Catherine's Hospital in February. I was exhausted, still recovering from childbirth, and holding Lily beneath a thin blanket while my sister, Emily, tried to find a taxi.
At the time, I had believed we were alone.
Now I understood that someone had been watching us from the beginning.
Nathan enlarged the photograph.
“Who took this?”
“I don't know.”
“Grace.”
“I swear I don't.”
He looked at the image again.
“Why did you leave the hospital through the rear entrance?”
“Because I didn't want anyone to recognize me.”
“Recognize you as what?”
I swallowed.
“As the woman who had your child.”
The words sounded even more terrible spoken aloud.
Nathan put his phone down.
“Did you think I would deny her?”
I looked at him.
“I didn't know what you would do.”
“You've worked in my house for three years. You've watched me fire men for stealing from employees. You've watched me pay hospital bills for families who couldn't afford them. You've seen what happens to people who betray me, and you've seen what happens to people who earn my loyalty.”
He stepped closer.
“You knew me better than that.”
“No,” I whispered. “I knew the man who signed my paychecks. I knew the man everyone feared. But I didn't know the man who would look at an unexpected daughter and decide whether she deserved to exist.”
His expression darkened.
“Is that what you think of me?”
“I think you own an empire built on secrets. I think your enemies would use Lily to hurt you. And I think I had every reason to be terrified.”
Nathan looked as though I had struck him.
He turned toward the narrow window above the laundry sink.
For the first time, I noticed the small scar beneath his left ear, the one he had received on the night of the shooting.
I remembered pressing a towel against his wound.
I remembered his blood on my palms.
And I remembered the way he had looked at me when he finally opened his eyes.
Not like a boss looking at an employee.
Like a drowning man recognizing the person who had pulled him from the water.
“Nine months ago,” he said quietly, “you stayed with me at the estate.”
“Yes.”
“You held my hand while the surgeon removed the bullet.”
“Yes.”
“You didn't leave even after the doctor told you I might not survive the night.”
“No.”
He turned.
“Why?”
I stared at him.
“Because you were dying.”
“That isn't an answer.”
“It was the only answer I had.”
For a long moment, he said nothing.
Then his voice softened.
“Do you remember what I told you?”
I did.
I wished I didn't.
I remembered the storm rattling the windows of his private estate. I remembered the smell of antiseptic and rain. I remembered Nathan sitting upright despite the surgeon's instructions, refusing pain medication because he wanted to remain alert until his security team identified the person who had betrayed him.
And I remembered the conversation that followed.
He had asked me about my life before the mansion.
I had told him about my mother, who died when I was nineteen, and my sister, who had been my only family.
He had told me about his younger brother, Daniel, who had been killed in a car accident years earlier.
“He was the only person who ever made me feel like I wasn't born to become this man,” Nathan had said.
“What man?” I had asked.
“The man everyone fears.”
I had looked at him.
“Maybe the problem is that you've spent so long becoming him that you've forgotten there's another person underneath.”
He had stared at me for a long time.
Then he had laughed.
A real laugh.
I had never heard it before.
“Careful, Grace,” he had whispered. “You might be the only person in this house who can say something like that and survive.”
I had smiled despite my fear.
“You should probably be nicer to your housekeeper, then.”
He had smiled back.
And sometime before dawn, when the storm finally passed, the distance between us had disappeared.
There had been no promises.
No discussion of the future.
Only two lonely people who had found, for a few hours, a place where they could stop pretending to be unbreakable.
When I returned to Manhattan, Nathan was still recovering.
Then he disappeared into business for weeks.
By the time I discovered I was pregnant, he had returned to being the distant, untouchable man everyone knew.
I had written him a letter.
Three pages.
I had explained everything and asked to speak with him privately.
But before I could deliver it, someone slipped another envelope beneath my apartment door.
Inside was a photograph of Nathan standing outside the hospital where I worked before joining his household.
Beneath it was a note.
If you tell Blackwood about the child, she'll be the first to suffer.
I recognized the signature at the bottom.
Victor Blackwood.
Nathan's uncle.
A man who controlled a significant portion of the family business and had spent years insisting that Nathan's personal life was a weakness.
I burned my letter.
I told myself I was protecting my baby.
And when Lily was born, I gave her my last name.
Miller.
Not Blackwood.
Now Nathan was standing in front of me, demanding the truth I had buried.
“Why didn't you come to me?” he asked.
I forced myself back into the present.
“Because Victor threatened us.”
The room went silent.
Nathan's face became unreadable.
“My uncle?”
I nodded.
“What exactly did he say?”
“He told me that if I claimed you were Lily's father, the child would become a liability. He said your enemies would use her to control you. He said that if I wanted her to survive, I should disappear.”
Nathan's hands curled into fists.
“When?”
“During my pregnancy. The first threat came when I was four months along. There were others after Lily was born.”
“And you believed him?”
“I had no money. No powerful family. No way to protect a baby from people who could find us anywhere.”
“You had me.”
The words came out almost violently.
I shook my head.
“I had your name. That's not the same thing.”
He stared at me.
Then he reached for his phone and called someone.
“Get Victor on the line.”
A voice answered after several seconds.
“Mr. Blackwood.”
“Where's my uncle?”
“His office, sir.”
“Tell him I'm coming.”
Nathan ended the call.
He looked at Lily.
She was chewing on the rabbit's ear, completely unaware that her existence had just set a criminal empire on fire.
Then Nathan crouched beside her again.
“I'm going to ask you something,” he said gently. “And you're going to answer me honestly.”
I nodded.
“Does Lily have a middle name?”
“Marie.”
“Why?”
“It's my mother's name.”
He nodded.
“Good.”
Then he looked toward the door.
“Because if she's my daughter, she'll need a family name.”
I tightened my hold on Lily.
“And what if your family destroys her?”
Nathan's eyes lifted to mine.
“Then I'll destroy the part of my family that tries.”
He reached for his jacket.
But before he could put it on, his phone vibrated again.
A message appeared on the screen.
The sender's identity was hidden.
The attachment was a scan of an old hospital record.
Nathan opened it.
His face changed.
I had seen him furious. I had seen him injured. I had seen him threaten men without raising his voice.
I had never seen him look frightened.
“What is it?” I asked.
He didn't answer.
I stepped forward and looked at the screen.
The document was Lily's birth record.
At the bottom was a handwritten medical note from the night she was born.
INFANT PRESENTS WITH UNUSUAL BLOOD MARKER. PATERNAL SAMPLE REQUIRED FOR CONFIRMATION.
Beneath that, someone had added a sentence in red.
THE CHILD'S BIOLOGICAL FATHER MAY NOT BE NATHAN BLACKWOOD.
I looked up at him.
For one terrible second, I wondered whether everything I had believed about that night was wrong.
Then Nathan scrolled farther down.
The document included a second attachment.
A photograph of a man standing beside my hospital bed.
A man I had not seen since the night Lily was born.
A man who was supposed to be dead.
May you like
Nathan's brother.
Daniel Blackwood.
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