Chapter 3: What I Never Told Him
The name on that screen was Marcus Hale.
Liam picked up his phone before I could move.
He read the message.
His face went very still in the way it only did when something was genuinely bad.
"Who is Marcus Hale?" he said.
"Give me the phone."
"Emma—"
"Liam.
Give me the phone."
He handed it over.
The message was four words.
*I know you're pregnant.*
The coffee mug slipped in my fingers.
I caught it.
Set it on the counter.
Sat down on the edge of the couch because my legs had stopped working the way they were supposed to.
"Talk," Liam said.
He pulled a chair from the kitchen table and sat directly in front of me.
"Right now.
All of it."
I looked at the floor for a long moment.
Then I looked at him.
"Marcus Hale was my mother's lawyer," I said.
"After she died, he handled the estate.
There wasn't much — the house, some savings.
But there was a document she left.
A sealed letter, addressed to me, that Marcus was supposed to deliver when I turned twenty-five."
"What was in it?"
"I don't know.
I never got it." I pressed my hands flat against my knees.
"Two weeks before my birthday, Marcus called me.
He said the letter had information about my father.
My real father.
He said the man listed on my birth certificate wasn't him."
Liam went very quiet.
"He told me my biological father was a man named Richard Vitali."
The name landed between us like something heavy dropped on a table.
"Alessandro's father," Liam said.
"His father died four years ago.
But before he died, he apparently told Marcus everything.
He and my mother had a relationship for almost two years.
She never told anyone.
She raised me alone, and she never said a word." I exhaled slowly.
"Marcus said the letter contained proof.
A private paternity acknowledgment Richard Vitali signed before he died.
If that document is real, then Alessandro and I are—"
"Half-siblings," Liam said.
"No." I shook my head.
"Richard Vitali had two sons from his first marriage.
Alessandro is from his second wife.
We don't share a mother.
But we share a father, which means Alessandro is my half-brother, and I didn't know that when I went to that gala, and I didn't know it when I went up to that room, and I didn't know it until Marcus called me the morning after and told me what I had done."
The apartment was completely silent.
Liam stood up.
Walked to the window.
Stood there with his back to me for a long moment.
"That's why you've been running," he said finally.
"Marcus wants the letter back.
He says it's dangerous.
He says if the Vitali family finds out Richard acknowledged an illegitimate child, it affects the estate, the trust distributions, the business succession — everything.
He's been trying to reach me for two years.
I changed my number.
I moved.
I thought I'd lost him." I looked down at the phone in my hand.
"I was wrong."
Liam turned around.
His expression wasn't anger.
It was something worse — the careful, controlled look of someone trying very hard not to fall apart on your behalf.
"Does Alessandro know any of this?"
"No."
"Does he know your real name?"
"No."
"Emma." He crossed the room and crouched in front of me.
"You are carrying that man's child.
And you are telling me he is also your half-brother."
I couldn't answer that.
There was no answer that made it better.
"What does Marcus want?" Liam asked.
"He wants me to disappear.
Permanently.
He wants me to sign something saying I have no claim on the Vitali estate, that I'll never contact the family, that the letter never existed." I pressed my fingers against my eyes.
"He's been saying that for two years.
But now he knows about the pregnancy, which means someone has been watching me, Liam.
Someone has been watching this apartment."
Liam stood up slowly.
He walked to the window and looked down at the street below.
His jaw tightened.
May you like
"There's a black car," he said.
"It's been parked across the street since Tuesday."
