Chapter 5 - The Father Who Was Supposed to Be DeadI watched the black screen for nearly a minute after the video ended.
My daughter slept against my chest, her little fingers curled around the rabbit she had carried into Nathan's office. Somewhere above us, men were shooting at one another inside a mansion I had spent three years cleaning.
And my sister had just told me something that made no sense.
Nathan's father was supposed to be dead.
Everyone knew the story. Thomas Blackwood had died when Nathan was seventeen, killed in a car explosion on a highway outside Manhattan. Daniel had been in the vehicle with him and supposedly survived only long enough to make a final phone call to Nathan.
Nathan had never spoken about that call.
But I had heard rumors.
People said Daniel's last words had been a warning. Others claimed he had revealed the name of the person responsible for the explosion.
Nobody agreed on the details.
Now Emily was telling me that Thomas had survived.
I stared at Lily's sleeping face.
“What have we gotten ourselves into, sweetheart?”
A knock sounded on the security room door.
I jolted upright.
“Grace?” a man called. “It's Calder. Open the door.”
I waited.
“Mr. Blackwood has ordered me to bring you upstairs.”
I approached the door but didn't touch the lock.
“What happened to Nathan?”
“He's alive.”
“Is he hurt?”
“No.”
“Then tell me why my sister says his father tried to kill him.”
Silence.
I closed my eyes.
“Calder, I am done being the only person in this house who doesn't know the truth.”
The lock clicked.
Calder entered with a tablet in one hand and a small medical kit in the other. His suit was torn at the shoulder, and there was a smear of blood along his collar.
He noticed me looking.
“Not mine.”
“That's comforting.”
He almost smiled.
Then he saw the frozen image of Emily on the screen.
“Where did you get that?”
“The system showed it to me. Who is holding my sister?”
Calder studied the footage.
“I don't know yet.”
“Don't lie to me.”
He looked at me for a long moment.
Then he sat opposite me.
“Thomas Blackwood was declared dead fifteen years ago. The explosion was real. Three men died in the vehicle. But the body identified as Thomas belonged to someone else.”
I felt the room tilt.
“Then why did everyone say he was dead?”
“Because Thomas paid people to make it true.”
“Why?”
“His own empire had become unstable. He had enemies inside his organization, a federal investigation closing around him, and two sons who wanted nothing to do with the business he had built. So he disappeared, leaving Victor to manage the public side of the family while he controlled things from a distance.”
I struggled to understand.
“And Nathan?”
“Nathan believed his father was dead. Daniel eventually discovered the truth.”
“Why didn't he tell Nathan?”
“Because Thomas threatened to kill him if he did.”
I looked toward the door.
“Where is Daniel now?”
Calder lowered his voice.
“That's the question that has kept this family bleeding for five years.”
He opened the tablet.
A series of photographs appeared.
Daniel entering a hotel.
Daniel leaving a hospital.
Daniel standing outside my apartment building.
I stared at the last image.
He was looking directly toward my window.
The photograph had been taken three months before Lily was born.
“He was watching me,” I whispered.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Calder hesitated.
“Because he believed someone had identified you as Nathan's weakness.”
I felt sick.
“I was a housekeeper.”
“You were someone Nathan trusted.”
“That doesn't make me a weakness.”
“To you and me, perhaps not. To men who build their lives around control, it does.”
Calder swiped to another image.
This one showed a man standing outside the hospital on the night Lily was born.
I recognized the face from the photograph Nathan had received.
Daniel.
But this time, I noticed something in the background.
A second man stood beside an ambulance, holding a folder.
Even through the grainy image, I recognized the broad shoulders and silver hair.
Victor Blackwood.
My stomach tightened.
“He was there,” I whispered.
“Yes.”
“And he knew?”
“We believe Victor knew about the pregnancy before Lily was born.”
“Then why didn't he simply take her?”
Calder's expression became grim.
“Because Thomas had given a specific order. Nathan could not be allowed to produce an heir. Victor needed to make sure the child either never existed publicly or could never inherit.”
I remembered Victor's threat.
If you want her to survive, disappear.
I had obeyed him without understanding what his words really meant.
“Why would he care about inheritance if Nathan doesn't even want the empire?”
“Because the empire doesn't care what Nathan wants. It has rules, agreements, investments, and men who expect to know who will control it next.”
Calder leaned forward.
“A child changes everything. Especially a child born to a man the family believes is incapable of having a legitimate heir.”
“Legitimate?”
He looked uncomfortable.
I thought of Nathan's late fiancée, the elegant woman in the framed photographs I had dusted for years.
“She was never married to him,” I said.
“No.”
“Then why would Lily be considered illegitimate?”
“It's not a legal question. It's a political one.”
He closed the tablet.
“Grace, somebody just attacked the Blackwood mansion to get your daughter. That means this isn't only about the past. Whoever is behind it knows Nathan has discovered Lily.”
He stood.
“We need to move.”
I followed him through the security corridor.
When we reached the east suite, I stopped in the doorway.
Nathan was standing beside the window, his white shirt stained with blood at the cuff. His tie was gone. One of his guards stood nearby, speaking quietly into an earpiece.
Nathan dismissed him with a gesture.
Then he looked at Lily.
“Is she all right?”
“She hasn't been hurt.”
He released a breath so slowly that it almost sounded painful.
“Thank God.”
I stared at him.
“Your sister-in-law's video said your father tried to kill you.”
“Nathan's father,” Calder corrected quietly.
Nathan's gaze sharpened.
“Explain.”
Calder told him everything he had told me.
Nathan listened without interrupting.
When Calder finished, Nathan walked to the desk and poured himself a glass of water. His hand was steady until he reached for the glass.
Then it trembled.
“He was alive,” Nathan said.
No one answered.
“My father was alive this entire time.”
I watched the anger rise behind his eyes.
“He let me bury a stranger. He let me spend five years believing Daniel was dead. He let me build an empire on the foundations of a lie.”
He crushed the glass in his hand.
Blood slipped between his fingers.
I rushed forward instinctively.
“Nathan!”
He didn't seem to notice the injury.
He stared at the broken glass.
Then he looked at Lily.
His expression changed.
“If my father is alive, he's not getting within a mile of her.”
I held my daughter closer.
“Then we should leave.”
“No.”
He stepped toward me.
“Listen carefully. I won't force you to stay in this mansion. If you want to leave, I'll arrange a safe place for you and Lily. But the moment you walk out that door, every enemy I've spent years keeping away from my family will know exactly where to find you.”
“Then what do you suggest?”
He looked at Lily.
“We make them believe the child is already dead.”
I stared at him.
“Absolutely not.”
“Grace—”
“You don't get to erase her existence because it's convenient. You don't get to decide what happens to my daughter without asking me.”
His jaw tightened.
Then he slowly nodded.
“You're right.”
I hadn't expected that.
He continued, “We don't hide Lily's existence. We hide where she is.”
He took a small black device from his pocket and handed it to Calder.
“Prepare the north safehouse. Nobody uses the usual route. Nobody is told the destination until we're inside the car.”
Calder nodded.
“Understood.”
Nathan looked back at me.
“I want a paternity test.”
The words struck me like a slap.
I knew it was reasonable. I knew it was the only way to establish the truth in a family full of lies.
Still, it hurt.
“You don't believe she's yours.”
“I believe someone is deliberately trying to make me doubt it.”
His voice softened.
“And I won't let them use your daughter to manipulate either of us.”
I looked down at Lily.
Her eyes had opened.
She stared at Nathan, then reached toward him.
“Da-da.”
Nathan offered her his uninjured hand.
She wrapped her tiny fingers around his thumb.
He watched her for several seconds.
“Whatever the test says,” he whispered, “no one will ever use a child to control me again.”
Then the door opened.
A young security officer rushed inside, pale and breathless.
“Mr. Blackwood, we've found the source of the message.”
Nathan turned.
“Who?”
The officer held out a photograph.
It showed a man standing outside a private clinic, his face unmistakable.
Daniel Blackwood.
Beneath the image was a handwritten note.
YOUR BROTHER IS WAITING FOR YOU. COME ALONE IF YOU WANT THE MOTHER TO LIVE.
Nathan looked at me.
I had already recognized the red scarf visible around the woman's neck in the background.
It belonged to Emily.
May you like
My sister was alive.
And someone had just threatened to kill her.
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