Chapter 1 - The Bleeding Stranger
My hands shook as I pressed the cracked phone to my ear.
The call had connected before the first ring even finished.
A woman answered before I could force a single word out of my frozen throat.
"Harper Miller," she said calmly.
"Listen carefully because we know exactly where you are."
I nearly dropped the phone onto the wet concrete.
The rain was pouring down my face, mixing with the tears I didn't realize I was crying.
Then the wounded stranger on the ground reached up and grabbed my wrist.
His grip was terrifyingly strong for a man who had lost so much blood.
"Do not trust her," he wheezed, coughing up a dark red spray.
I looked down at the tiny, fragile newborn shivering against my chest.
The second baby was still crying in the man's other arm.
"Who are you people?" I begged, my voice cracking in the cold wind.
"Why do you know my name?"
The man named Ethan looked at me with eyes that were fading fast.
"Your father sent his men to kill me tonight, Harper."
I shook my head frantically, backing away half a step.
"My father died in a car crash before I was even born."
"My foster parents told me he was a nobody."
Ethan let out a harsh, wet laugh that sounded like tearing paper.
"He lied to everyone."
"Arthur Miller is very much alive, and he runs the most dangerous corporation in this city."
I stared at him, unable to process the absolute insanity of his words.
"And these babies," Ethan gasped, his grip loosening on my wrist as his eyes rolled back.
"They are your half-siblings."
"Protect them from him."
Ethan's hand fell to the wet pavement with a sickening thud.
May you like
His chest stopped moving entirely.
The billionaire was dead in an alley, and I was holding a baby that was supposedly my sister.
