Chapter 3 - Blood and Birth Certificates
The Voss estate sat atop the North Ridge bluff like a fortress built of black granite and reinforced glass.
The gates opened silently as the heavy SUV rolled up the winding driveway lined with towering pine trees. Elena sat in the middle row of the vehicle, squeezed between the triple stroller and the leather door.
The moment she had stepped into the back seat at the diner, the screaming had stopped.
It hadn't just lessened; it had ceased entirely. The little girl—whose name Caden had quietly informed her was Mia—had grabbed a fistful of Elena's wet coat and promptly fallen asleep against her knee. The two boys, Leo and Noah, were staring at her with wide, drowsy hazel eyes, their tiny thumbs hooked into their mouths, refusing to close their eyes as if afraid she would vanish if they blinked.
Elena hadn't stopped trembling. Her hands were tucked under Caden’s oversized coat, her mind racing through memories she had buried under fourteen months of survival.
Room 412. The smell of antiseptic. The cold sheet pulled over her lap. Dr. Sterling's quiet, sympathetic headshake.
"We're here," Caden said from the front passenger seat.
He opened his door and stepped out, holding the rear door open himself. He reached into the back to unbuckle Noah, but the toddler let out a sharp, indignant wail, burying his face deeper into Elena’s hip.
Caden froze, his hand suspended in the air. He looked at Elena, his expression unreadable. "It seems they have made their preference clear."
Elena carefully unbuckled Leo and Mia, gathering two of them into her arms while Caden reluctantly picked up Noah, who whined until Caden moved close enough for his small hand to keep touching Elena’s sleeve.
They walked into the main foyer. The estate was vast, echoing, and strikingly modern—polished concrete floors, towering floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the storm-tossed harbor below, and minimalist furniture that looked more like museum exhibits than a home meant for three infants.
Standing in the center of the foyer under a massive brass chandelier was a man in his late fifties wearing a rumpled tweed jacket, sweating despite the chill in the air.
Dr. Marcus Sterling.
Beside him stood Ortega, whose right hand was buried calmly inside his suit jacket.
"Caden," Dr. Sterling began, his voice shrill, wiping his damp forehead with a silk handkerchief. "What is the meaning of this? Your men pulled me out of a charity dinner! If this is about the children's routine developmental checkups, I assured you—"
Dr. Sterling’s voice cut off like a severed wire as Elena stepped into the bright chandelier light, holding two sleeping toddlers against her chest.
The doctor's face went from pale to ghostly grey. The handkerchief dropped from his fingers, fluttering to the polished concrete floor.
"Hello, Dr. Sterling," Elena said, her voice shaking with an anger so intense it felt cold. "Do you remember me? Or do you only remember the fifty-thousand-dollar check you handed me after telling me my babies were dead?"
"Elena... Miss Vance," Sterling stammered, stepping back until his spine hit the marble staircase pillar. "You... you shouldn't be here. This is... this is a violation of the non-disclosure agreement—"
Caden didn't wait for him to finish.
In one fluid, terrifying movement, Caden crossed the foyer, grabbed Dr. Sterling by the throat, and slammed him back against the marble pillar with enough force to make the brass fixtures rattle overhead.
Noah whimpered in Caden's arm, but Caden didn't lose his grip. His face was inches from Sterling's, his voice dropping into a register that made the blood run cold.
"You have five seconds," Caden said quietly, "to explain to me why the woman who carried my heirs believed she buried them fourteen months ago."
"Caden... please!" Sterling choked out, his hands clawing uselessly at Caden's iron grip. "It wasn't my idea! It was the estate agreement! The original surrogacy contract!"
"Speak," Caden growled, tightening his grip slightly.
"Your late wife's family!" Sterling gasped out, tears of pain leaking from his eyes. "The Moretti family! Before Mrs. Voss passed, her father... Don Moretti... he paid the clinic ten million dollars to ensure the surrogate would have zero legal claim, zero contact, and zero knowledge! He wanted the mother completely erased from the records so the Moretti family could claim legal co-guardianship if anything happened to you!"
Elena felt the room spin. Don Moretti. The rival family. The name carried as much blood and terror in this city as Voss.
"Moretti told you to tell her they were dead?" Caden demanded, his eyes flashing with lethal fury.
"We... we forged the death certificates at St. Augustine's," Sterling wept, completely broken. "We told Miss Vance the babies suffered pulmonary collapse. We gave her a sealed urn with ashes from the hospital crematorium... it was just incinerated medical linen! The babies were transferred directly to your private medical transport the moment they were stabilized!"
Elena dropped to her knees right there on the foyer floor, her arms wrapped tightly around Leo and Mia.
Ashes. She had spent fourteen months keeping a small bronze urn on her nightstand next to her mother's picture. She had kissed that urn every night before going to sleep. She had wept over a pile of burned bedsheets.
A low, guttural sound tore out of Elena’s throat—a sound of pure, unadulterated heartbreak.
Caden looked down at her. Something shifted in his eyes—a crack in the armor he had worn for years. He let go of Dr. Sterling, letting the gasping doctor crumple to the floor like a sack of dirty laundry.
"Ortega," Caden said, his voice entirely dead.
"Yes, Boss?"
"Take Dr. Sterling down to the harbor docks. Put him in holding cellar four. Nobody touches him until I come down."
"Understood." Ortega grabbed Sterling by the collar and dragged him out the heavy front doors into the rain.
Caden handed Noah down to Elena, then slowly dropped to one knee beside her on the cold concrete. The three toddlers were awake now, sensing the storm around them, but instead of crying, all three crawled into Elena’s lap, burying their small faces into her sweater, clinging to her like she was the only anchor in a rising tide.
May you like
Caden reached out. His gloved hand hovered over Elena’s trembling shoulder for a fraction of a second before he laid his palm flat against her back, steadying her.
"They are yours," Caden whispered, his voice dark and heavy with a vow that echoed through the empty hall. "And no one in this city will ever take them—or you—from this house again."
