Chapter 3 - The Lethal Secret
The entire conservatory plunged into a deathly, suffocating silence.
Sloane did not look shocked, embarrassed, or remotely apologetic about my father's horrific statement.
She simply crossed her arms and glared fiercely at the man who had just exposed her failure.
I realized in a split second that the woman I was supposed to marry was a cold-blooded monster.
My own father had hired my fiancée to murder my children while I was lying in a hospital bed.
I did not waste a single breath arguing with the sociopaths who had planned my entire life.
I turned on my heel and sprinted out of the glass building, ignoring my mother's hysterical screaming.
My phone buzzed in my pocket with a text from my private investigator containing Clara's current address.
I drove my own car recklessly through the dark streets of Boston until I reached a modest apartment complex in Southie.
I pounded my fists against the battered wooden door of apartment number four.
Clara opened the door slowly, keeping the heavy brass chain firmly locked in place.
I begged her to let me inside, warning her that her life and the lives of our boys were in immediate danger.
She hesitated for a terrible moment before sliding the chain back and pulling me into the dim living room.
The four boys were asleep on a pull-out couch, completely oblivious to the massive conspiracy surrounding them.
Clara handed me a thick, sealed manila envelope she had kept hidden for six years.
She explained that my father’s men had forced her to sign these documents the day after my car crash.
I pulled out a legally binding non-disclosure agreement that stripped her of all parental rights if she ever contacted me.
But there was another document tucked at the very bottom of the envelope.
It was a heavily redacted contract bearing the official letterhead of Sloane's family corporation.
The contract explicitly authorized a lethal hit on Clara and the unborn children.
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But the signature authorizing the assassination did not belong to Sloane or my father.
The signature belonged to my beloved grandfather, the man whose antique cuff links I was currently wearing.
