Chapter 4 - The Bloodline's Secret
By 2:00 AM, Doctor Evans—a trusted family physician who owed his career to Nathan’s father—had finished examining the twins in the sunlit nursery of the east wing.
The boys had been fed warm formula, bathed, and placed in two mahogany cribs. Doctor Evans stepped out into the hallway where Nathan stood waiting.
“They’re dehydrated and malnourished, Nathan,” Doctor Evans said, wiping his glasses with a handkerchief. “Another forty-eight hours without food, and those newborns wouldn't have made it. But Elelliana kept them alive. It’s a miracle, frankly. That little girl gave them every drop of water and warm milk she could beg for.”
Nathan looked through the glass window into the nursery. Elelliana was sitting on a stool between the two cribs, fast asleep with her head resting on her arms, still clutching her cloth napkin with twenty-seven cents.
“What about Sarah?” Nathan asked softly. “Did you find any official reports on the fire?”
Doctor Evans looked around the empty hallway before pulling a encrypted tablet from his bag.
“I called the chief medical examiner in Queens,” Evans whispered. “The fire at Sarah’s apartment building wasn't an accident caused by a space heater, Nathan.”
Nathan’s eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. “What do you mean?”
“The arson investigators found traces of industrial accelerant near the gas line,” Evans revealed, his voice shaking. “The fire was set intentionally. And three hours before the fire started, Sarah’s legal guardian rights over her children were secretly revoked by a closed-door court order filed by Julian Vance’s private law firm.”
Nathan felt the air leave his lungs.
Julian hadn't just abandoned Sarah’s children. He had murdered her.
“Why?” Nathan demanded, his voice a low, terrifying growl. “Sarah lived in a run-down two-room apartment! She had nothing!”
“She had her share of the family trust, Nathan,” Evans explained. “Under your father’s original will, if Sarah died without legal heirs, her twenty-five percent stake in Vance Global Logistics automatically reverted to Julian. But if her children survived and claimed their inheritance using the primary trust key... Julian loses everything.”
The silver key.
The tiny tarnished key Elelliana had hidden beneath the sole of her shoe was the master key to the Vance Family Heritage Vault in Zurich—a vault holding forty percent of the company’s voting shares and Sarah’s original, unedited diary detailing Julian’s financial crimes.
Julian needed those children dead or hidden in the foster system forever so he could claim total control of the shipping empire at the upcoming shareholder meeting in three days.
Nathan walked into the nursery, stepping quietly up to Elelliana’s chair.
He gently picked up the sleeping girl and carried her over to the plush velvet sofa in the corner of the room, pulling a warm wool blanket over her shoulders.
As he set her down, Elelliana stirred slightly, her small hand reaching out to catch his coat sleeve.
“Mr. Nathan?” she murmured softly in her sleep.
“I’m here, little one,” Nathan whispered, brushing a dark curl from her forehead.
“Did I pay you back yet?” she mumbled, her eyes half-closed.
May you like
Nathan smiled—a sad, beautiful smile that warmed his cold eyes.
“You paid me back the moment you walked into my life, Elelliana,” Nathan said gently. “Now go to sleep.”
