His Brother's Ex, His Unborn Child

Chapter 22

NICHOLAS

Marcus delivered the full report to me in person, which told me before he sat down that what he had found was significant enough that he didn't want it in writing until I had decided what to do with it. He came to Carter Group at seven in the morning before the floor filled and sat across from my desk with a manila folder.

"Tell me," I said.

He opened the folder and talked for forty minutes.

I listened without interrupting.

The location data confirmed the preliminary report. Liam's phone twelve miles from the lakehouse at the time of the attack. The unregistered number traced to a man with a documented history of for-hire work. Two prior investigations, both involving arranged assault, both settled privately. The cash withdrawals matched the payment structure Marcus had seen in similar arrangements — upfront and completion, fourteen thousand and eight thousand.

"His second phone," I said.

"Registered to a shell company that traces back to Liam Carter through three intermediaries." He set a page on my desk. "The second phone is how he ran everything. Calls to the unregistered contact. Calls to a pharmacist operating outside his license — three disciplinary actions in six years. That pharmacist received two calls from the second phone in the week before Mrs. Carter's prenatal vitamins were delivered to the apartment."

"The vitamins," I said.

"I accessed Dr. Chen's records." Marcus set another page down. "Mrs. Carter attended a private clinic on Park Avenue. Cash payments. No insurance trail. Dr. Chen ran a specific toxicology panel. There are compounds present in Mrs. Carter's bloodwork that have no place in a standard prenatal formulation. Compounds consistent with early pregnancy disruption. The kind that accumulate slowly and are designed to present as a natural miscarriage." He looked at me steadily. "Mrs. Carter switched to her own supplements before the levels became critical. She figured it out before the damage was done."

I thought about Elena switching supplements quietly and attending private checkups.

She had known before I did.

"The affair," I said.

"Chloe Marchand. Senior sales associate at Vellum on Madison. Two years. Hotel records, restaurant receipts, a property in the Berkshires booked three times in the past year and it was all paid through the shell company. The relationship predates the lakehouse. There are communications between her phone and Liam's second phone in the weeks before the attack. She was involved in the planning stages."

"There's one more thing," Marcus said. He set a page on the desk. "A letter. Addressed to Mrs. Carter at their home. It was delivered three days after the lakehouse attack." He slid it across. "The delivery confirmation shows it was signed for by L. Carter. Not E. Carter."

I looked at the page.

The return address was a law firm on Park Avenue.

Hargrove and Associates.

I knew that name from somewhere. I couldn't place it immediately. I set it aside. There was too much else on the page.

"He opened her mail," I said.

"Three days after the attack," Marcus said. "Whatever was in that letter, he read it before she did. I am not sure if she got the letter. His search history on the Carter Group legal database shows three queries about spousal inheritance rights in the seventy-two hours after delivery."

I sat with that.

Liam had arranged the attack without knowing about any inheritance. The attack was about Chloe. About discarding Elena the way Liam discarded things that had stopped being useful. And then a letter arrived at the apartment addressed to Elena and Liam opened it and the plan became something else entirely.

"He found out after the attack," I said.

"The attack wasn't about money," Marcus said. "The money changed the plan after."

"One more thing," Marcus said. He set the final page on my desk. "The timeline of the pregnancy."

I had been avoiding this.

Not because I didn't know what it would show. Because knowing and seeing it documented in black and white were two different things and I had needed to be ready for the second one.

Elena's clinic visit. The date. The doctor's estimated conception window. It was a range of four days, bracketed clearly in the report.

I set the page face down.

"Thank you," I said. "This is thorough."

"What do you want to do with it?" he said.

"Nothing yet. I need to think."

He gathered his copies, shook my hand and left.

**

I sat alone in my office for a long time.

I thought about Elena at the family dinner. The contempt I had worn when I looked at her. Considering one night— Said to a woman who had survived an attack her husband arranged.She hadn't known what those words meant.

She had simply been trying to survive.

And I had made it harder.

Elena was carrying a child that Liam had been trying to destroy — modified vitamins arranged through a disgraced pharmacist, accidents engineered, the cold patience of a man who had decided a miscarriage was the cleanest solution to a problem he couldn't afford.

And the child was mine.

I let the thought complete itself. Fully and without pulling back.

The dates on the page. The conception window. The dark road and the rain and a woman who remembered almost nothing of that night.

My child. Surviving because Elena's instincts had fired before she understood what they were responding to.

Surviving because she had switched supplements and attended private checkups. She fought for something that could not fight for itself yet.

She had been Liam's victim.

She had been my victim.

And she had survived both of us with more dignity than either of us deserved.

The guilt arrived completely then. I had been carrying that for weeks. The complete version. Every cold word. Every dismissal. Every moment I had looked at Elena Voss and seen what I had decided to see rather than what was actually there.

I read the full report from the beginning. Not because I needed to. Because I owed it to her to know every detail of what had been done to her and what I had contributed to by looking away.

I read it to the end.

Then I closed it and called Dominique.

She answered on the second ring.

"It's worse than I thought," I said.

"I know," she said.

"The baby is mine."

Silence. It was not a surprise.

"I know that too," she said quietly.

"How?"

"I watch people," she said. "You looked at her the way you look at things you're trying not to want. And she almost remembered something every time you were in the same room."

I couldn't speak.

"What are you going to do?" she said.

I looked at the closed folder on my desk.

"Protect her. From the shadows for now. Until I know how to tell her the truth without destroying the only stable thing she has left."

"Nicholas." Her voice was careful. "Don't wait too long."

"I know," I said.

I ended the call.

She had been protecting my child without knowing what she was protecting. That ended tonight. I opened my laptop and pulled up Carter Group's security division contacts. I started making arrangements for the Carlyle, Elena's floor, discreet coverage, nothing that would alarm her or signal Liam that someone was watching.

I was halfway through the second contact when my phone rang.

Marcus.

I picked up immediately.

"There's something you need to know," he said. "The unregistered number. The for-hire contact."

"What about it?"

"It received a call thirty minutes ago from Liam's second phone."

I went very still.

"He's arranging something," Marcus said. "I don't know what yet. But he made contact tonight. After months of nothing. Whatever he's planning, it's moving."

I looked at the security contacts still open on my laptop.

"Where is Elena right now?" I said.

"Room 412 at the Carlyle," Marcus said. "Alone. She hasn't left the floor."

I was already standing.

"Get someone there tonight," I said. "Now. Before anything else."

"Already on it," Marcus said.

I ended the call.

I stood at the window and looked at the city. Three blocks between my office and the Carlyle. Three blocks between Elena and whatever Liam had just set in motion.

She was carrying my child.

She had no idea what was coming.

And I was not going to let him touch her again.