Chapter 2 - The Tracking and the Reunion in the Rain
Gavin Roarke did not place the tablet on the mahogany desk immediately. He waited until Declan’s hands stopped gripping the edges of the desk, until the titan of Voss Logistics raised his bloodshot, dark eyes and looked at his chief of security with the raw, terrifying hunger of a man who had been starving in the dark for nearly four months.
"Speak, Gavin," Declan whispered. His voice was gravel, stripped raw by weeks of endless phone calls, sleepless nights, and scotch that did nothing to dull the agony in his chest.
Gavin tapped the glass screen. "A cash transaction pattern in Buncombe County, North Carolina. Three weeks ago, a small apothecary in a town called Black Mountain sold two bottles of organic prenatal vitamins and specialized natural restoration solvents. Paid in hundred-dollar bills. The cashier remembered her because she asked if the solvent contained toluene—said she was pregnant and couldn't breathe fumes while working on canvas."
Declan stood up so fast his leather chair crashed backward against the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Lake Michigan.
"She’s restoring paintings," Declan breathed, his chest heaving under his tailored suit jacket. "She’s working."
"She’s living above an antique shop owned by a woman named June Whitaker," Gavin said gently. "She’s calling herself Claire Mason. Declan... she’s four months pregnant. Our medical contact in Asheville confirmed a woman matching her description had an ultrasound at a charity clinic twelve days ago."
Declan’s hand trembled as he reached out, his long fingers hovering over the tablet screen. On the display was a grainy, zoomed-in security photo taken from a bakery across the street in Black Mountain.
There she was.
Amelia.
She wore an oversized navy flannel shirt that hung loose over her shoulders, her dark hair pulled back into a messy knot. Her face was paler than he remembered, her cheekbones sharper, but one hand was resting gently, protectively, against the subtle curve of her abdomen.
Declan stared at that small curve until his vision blurred with unshed tears.
"Get the jet ready," Declan choked out, his voice shaking with a dangerous mixture of relief and absolute fury. "Now."
The rain over Black Mountain had started as a mist at sunset, but by ten o'clock at night, it had turned into a steady, freezing downpour that rattled the tin roof of June Whitaker’s antique shop.
Above the shop, in her small, slanted-ceiling room, Amelia sat on the edge of the narrow bed. The room smelled faintly of cedar, lavender oil, and the linseed varnish she had spent the afternoon applying to a damaged eighteenth-century landscape.
She held a warm mug of chamomile tea in both hands, her knees pulled up toward her chest. Her stomach was no longer flat. The swell was distinct now—a round, firm promise beneath her cotton sweater. Every evening, when the house went quiet, she would lay her palm against her skin and listen to the silence, praying that the peace she had bought with her escape would be enough to raise a child.
Downstairs, the floorboards of the shop creaked.
Amelia froze. Her heart slammed against her ribs like a trapped bird.
She set her tea mug down on the nightstand, her hand instantly dropping to her stomach. Mrs. Whitaker had gone to her sister’s house in Charlotte for the weekend. The shop below was supposed to be locked, dark, and empty.
Creak.
It wasn't the wind. It was the deliberate, heavy tread of a man’s footstep on old pine.
Amelia’s breath hitched in her throat. Fear, cold and sickening, flooded her bloodstream. Had Elias Calloway’s enforcers found her? Had Savannah’s father decided to eliminate the "civilian" before she became an inconvenient headline?
She stood up slowly, her knees trembling. She grabbed the heavy brass candlestick off her dresser, her knuckles white around the metal, and edged toward the door of her apartment.
The door didn't have a deadbolt—only an old brass latch.
Before she could reach for the handle, the door opened.
It didn't burst open. It moved slowly, smoothly, as if the person on the other side owned the air in the room, owned the building, owned the mountains beyond the window.
Standing in the doorway, framed by the dim yellow light of the hallway, was a tall silhouette. The shoulders were broad enough to block out the light. He wore a dark charcoal wool coat, soaked through with rain, and his dark hair was wet, clinging to his forehead.
Amelia dropped the candlestick. It struck the wooden floor with a dull thud.
"Declan," she breathed.
Her voice was barely a whisper, but the name tore through the small room like thunder.
Declan Voss stood in the doorway, motionless. His dark eyes swept over her face, taking in every line, every shadow beneath her eyes, every soft curve of her pale features, before descending slowly, agonizingly, to her waist.
His eyes locked onto the rise of her stomach.
A low, ragged gasp ripped from his chest. Declan took a single step into the room, closing the door behind him with a soft click that sounded like the closing of a tomb.
Amelia instinctively took two steps backward until her spine hit the slanted wall near the window. She crossed her arms tightly over her belly, her eyes wide with terror and betrayal.
"Get out," she choked out, her voice rising in panic. "Get out of here! How did you find me?!"
"Amelia..." His voice was destroyed—a raspy, ruined shadow of the velvet tone that used to whisper against her throat in the dark.
"Don't come near me!" she yelled, her chest heaving as tears flooded her eyes. "I know why you're here! I saw the television! I heard what you said in your office! I heard you call me a civilian, Declan! I heard you tell Savannah I would be resolved quietly!"
Declan winced as if she had struck him across the face with a blade. He took another step forward, his large hands raised in front of him, open, trembling.
"You can't have this baby," Amelia sobbed, tears spilling over her lashes and running down her pale cheeks. "You have your billionaire empire! You have your shipping alliance! You have Savannah Calloway! You don't get to take my child to use as an heir for your corporate wars!"
Declan stopped three feet away from her. The smell of rain, expensive cedar cologne, and raw desperation rolled off him in waves.
He looked at her hands clutched over her belly. Then he raised his eyes to meet hers, his dark irises burning with a ferocity that made her breath catch in her throat.
"I didn't come for an heir, Amelia," Declan said, his voice shaking with a profound, terrifying truth that shattered the room's atmosphere.
He dropped to his knees right there on the worn pine floorboards in front of her.
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The billionaire who had brought international conglomerates to their knees, the man who controlled ports across three continents, knelt at the feet of a fugitive art restorer in a leaking attic room, his face pale, his dark eyes brimming with unshed tears.
"I came for you," Declan whispered, reaching out with trembling fingers, not daring to touch her until she gave him permission. "I came for you, Amelia. Only you."
