Chapter 2 - Two Heartbeats in the Dark
“Because there isn’t just one,” the technician said gently, turning the monitor toward Elena. “There are two. You’re having twins, Mrs… Davis, was it?”
Elena stared at the two tiny, flickering pulses on the grayscale screen. Twins. Two lives forged from a love she had walked away from, two children carrying the blood of a man who ruled the East Coast underworld. The air in the tiny Maine clinic felt suddenly too thin to breathe. She pressed a trembling hand over her mouth, tears of absolute terror and overwhelming, fierce protection spilling over her lashes. She was alone, running from the most powerful man in New York, and now she was carrying two of his heirs.
Hundreds of miles away in Westchester, Dominic Moretti was dismantling his empire from the inside out in his frantic search for his wife. The grand estate, once a testament to his untouchable status, had become a war room. Gabriel Knox stood by the mahogany desk, watching his oldest friend shatter a crystal tumbler against the stone fireplace.
“Nothing? You’re telling me she vanished into thin air?” Dominic roared, his voice rough with lack of sleep and too much scotch.
“She left her cards, her phone, her car,” Gabriel said calmly, unfazed by the outburst. “She’s using cash. She’s smart, Dom. You taught her how our security works. You taught her how to be a ghost.”
The door to the study eased open, and Vanessa stepped in, wearing a silk dress that belonged in a nightclub, not a mourning house. “Dominic, darling,” she purred, stepping over the shattered glass. “You’re destroying yourself over a woman who abandoned you. Let me—”
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Dominic moved faster than a striking snake. His hand clamped around Vanessa’s throat, not tight enough to kill, but enough to freeze the breath in her lungs. He slammed her back against the heavy oak doors. His eyes, usually calculating and cold, were hollow pits of feral rage.
“Do not ever,” Dominic snarled, his voice a lethal whisper, “speak her name. You are a mistake. A moment of drunken weakness. If you ever set foot on my property again, if you ever breathe a word to the press, I will make sure you disappear in a way that leaves no body to bury.” He released her, watching her collapse in a coughing, sobbing heap. “Get her out of my sight,” he snapped at Gabriel. “And tear this country apart until you find my wife.”
