Chapter 4 - The Shadow of the Past
The silence in the room was so heavy it felt like it was crushing my lungs.
"No," I shook my head, backing away. "No. David was a mechanic. We met in a diner. He was an orphan. He had no family."
"He had me," Ethan said, his voice cracking. "Until I drove him away."
My mind spun, trying to reconcile the gentle, goofy man who had loved me with the ruthless mafia boss standing in front of me.
"David hated the family business," Ethan continued, stepping into the room. He didn't look dangerous anymore; he looked utterly exhausted. "He wanted a normal life. When he left, I promised to keep him hidden from our enemies. I changed his name. I bought him that garage."
"David died of a heart attack," I said, my voice rising defensively. "He was twenty-nine. The doctors said it was a congenital defect."
Ethan looked at the floor. "There was no defect, Hannah. He was poisoned."
The room spun. I clutched Ellie so tightly she whined.
"Marcus Vance," Ethan said the name like a curse. "He took my wife and daughter to hurt me. When that didn't break me enough... he found David."
"You knew?" The betrayal tasted like ash in my mouth. "You knew my husband was murdered, and you left me alone? I had twenty-eight dollars in my bank account today, Ethan! I was cleaning your floors to buy diapers!"
"I didn't know about you!" Ethan shouted, the raw emotion finally breaking through his icy facade.
He pointed a shaking finger at Ellie. "David never told me he got married. He never told me he had a child. The only reason Vance found out about you is because you brought her into my building tonight."
I stared at him, the horrifying truth settling over me.
David had kept us a secret to keep us alive. And by walking into Whitmore Holdings tonight, I had put a target squarely on my baby's back.
Suddenly, Ethan's phone buzzed.
He answered it. "Yeah."
He listened for three seconds. All the color drained from his face.
He hung up and looked at me, his eyes wide with a fear I never thought a man like him could possess.
"Vance didn't just send a picture of your door," Ethan whispered.
"What did he do?" I begged.
Ethan looked at the diaper bag I had brought from the office. The one sitting on the coffee table.
"He paid one of the security guards in my lobby," Ethan said slowly, pulling a sleek black handgun from his waistband.
He walked toward the diaper bag.
"Ethan, what are you doing?" I cried.
He unzipped the front pocket of the bag.
Nestled between two pacifiers and a pack of baby wipes was a small, heavy black box with a blinking red light.
May you like
A GPS tracker.
Before Ethan could even reach for it, the massive bay windows at the front of the safehouse shattered inward in a shower of glass and gunfire.
