Seducing My Enemy’s Heir

Chapter 2

Thirteen Years Earlier

The night her childhood ended began with rain.

Not the gentle kind that softened the world, that washed dust from leaves and turned streetlights into halos. This rain fell hard and fast, slamming against the glass walls of the Cross residence as though the sky itself were trying to break in. Thunder rolled low and distant, a constant warning that something terrible was moving closer.

Vivian Cross was sixteen years old and sitting cross-legged on the floor of her bedroom, surrounded by college brochures her father insisted on reviewing together. MIT. Stanford. Oxford. He had circled programs in blue ink, scribbling notes in the margins like future-proof and world-class innovation.

“You don’t have to decide now,” Robert Cross had said earlier that evening, smiling in that distracted way he always did when his mind was juggling ten things at once. “You’re allowed to be young for a little while longer.”

She had rolled her eyes. “You say that, but you still printed fifty brochures.”

He laughed, warm and easy. “Preparation isn’t pressure. It’s love.”

That was the last thing he said to her before the house alarms went silent.

Vivian didn’t notice at first. The Cross estate was vast, nestled in the hills above the city, designed with enough layers of security to rival a foreign embassy. The alarms were always humming beneath the surface of the house—a low, comforting awareness, like a heartbeat. When it stopped, the quiet felt wrong, but she was sixteen and distracted and certain that nothing truly bad could happen in a house like this.

Then she heard the crash.

Glass shattered somewhere below, followed by a sound she couldn’t immediately place. A dull, wet thud. A man’s grunt. The sharp crack of something heavy colliding with flesh.

Vivian froze.

Her bedroom door was half open. The hallway beyond lay in shadow, the lights dimmed automatically for the night. She stood slowly, heart beginning to pound, every instinct screaming at her to lock the door, to hide, to call for help.

“Dad?” she called, her voice thinner than she meant it to be.

No answer.

Another sound rose up the stairwell—this one unmistakable.

Her father’s voice.

Not words. A cry. Raw, strangled, torn from deep in his chest.

Vivian didn’t think. She ran.

Barefoot, down the long corridor, past framed patents and photographs of conferences and smiling politicians shaking her father’s hand. Down the sweeping staircase where she had once descended in a white dress for her sixteenth birthday, beaming under crystal chandeliers.

Halfway down, she smelled blood.

The living room lights were on.

The glass walls that overlooked the city were shattered, rain pouring in, soaking the Persian rug in dark, spreading pools. Furniture lay overturned. One of the security guards—Mark, who used to sneak her candy from his pocket—was crumpled near the door, unmoving.

In the center of the room, her father was on his knees.

Robert Cross’s hands were bound behind his back, his suit jacket torn, his white shirt soaked red. His glasses lay shattered on the floor beside him. His face was swollen, one eye already closing, blood trickling from his mouth as he struggled to breathe.

Standing over him was a man Vivian had never seen before.

James Hawthorne was broad-shouldered and solid, dressed in a dark coat that shed rain like oil. His face was unremarkable in the way that truly dangerous men often were—no sharp edges, no obvious cruelty. Just calm, focused efficiency. In his hand, he held a metal baton, slick with blood.

“Please,” Robert gasped. “My daughter—”

Hawthorne kicked him hard in the ribs.

Vivian screamed.

The sound tore out of her, wild and uncontrollable. Every head in the room snapped toward her.

There were others. Three, maybe four men positioned near the walls, watching silently. And behind them, near the floor-to-ceiling windows, stood an older man in an immaculate suit, untouched by rain or chaos.

William Ashford.

Vivian knew his face. Everyone did. Former senator. Kingmaker. The man her father had been fighting in boardrooms and courts for months over a hostile takeover of Cross Dynamics. He watched the scene with detached interest, hands clasped behind his back, as though observing a negotiation rather than a beating.

“Vivian,” her father croaked, panic breaking through the pain. “Run.”

She didn’t move. Her legs felt rooted to the floor, her body betraying her as fear locked her in place.

Hawthorne turned fully toward her now, eyes assessing, calculating. “We have a witness.”

William Ashford sighed, faintly irritated. “She’s a child.”

“A child who can identify faces,” Hawthorne replied.

William considered this, head tilting slightly. “How old?”

“Sixteen,” Robert said hoarsely. “Please. She doesn’t know anything. Take me. Just let her go.”

Vivian found her voice again, though it shook. “Dad, what’s happening?”

William Ashford stepped forward then, his shoes making no sound on the soaked rug. He looked at her with cool, appraising eyes—eyes that stripped her of childhood in a single glance.

“This is business, Vivian,” he said mildly. “Your father made choices. Very bad ones.”

“My father didn’t do anything wrong,” she shouted. “You’re criminals.”

William smiled thinly. “Morality is flexible when power is involved.”

He turned back to Hawthorne. “Finish it. Quietly.”

“No,” Vivian sobbed. She lunged forward, but one of the men near the wall caught her, arms like iron locking around her torso. She struggled, screamed, kicked, but he held her easily, clamping a hand over her mouth.

Her father’s eyes locked onto hers.

That look—she would carry it for the rest of her life. Fear, yes. Pain, certainly. But beneath it all, there was something else. Apology. Regret. Love so fierce it burned.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

James Hawthorne moved with brutal precision.

He struck once, hard, the baton connecting with Robert’s shoulder. Bone cracked. Robert screamed. Again. And again. Each blow methodical, deliberate, designed not to kill quickly but to break.

Vivian thrashed, tears streaming down her face, throat raw from screaming into the man’s palm. She tasted blood where she’d bitten her lip. Her mind fractured under the assault of it—every sound amplified, every detail seared into memory.

Hawthorne leaned close to Robert, speaking low. “Where’s the server backup?”

“I don’t know,” Robert gasped.

Another blow. Then another.

“I swear—”

Hawthorne hit him again.

William Ashford watched, expression unreadable. “You should have sold when we offered,” he said calmly. “Pride is such an expensive flaw.”

Robert laughed weakly, blood bubbling at his lips. “You’ll never own my work.”

William’s eyes hardened. “I already do.”

A door creaked open somewhere behind them.

Vivian’s gaze flicked instinctively toward the sound.

A young man stood in the doorway.

He was tall, dark-haired, wearing a tailored coat too elegant for the violence of the room. Rain dotted his shoulders, his face pale as he took in the scene—the blood, the shattered glass, the bound man being beaten in front of his daughter.

Marcus Ashford was twenty-two years old.

Vivian didn’t know his name then. She only knew the way his eyes widened, the way his breath hitched, the way his hands curled into fists at his sides.

“Father,” Marcus said, his voice tight. “What the hell is this?”

William turned slightly, annoyance flickering across his features. “You weren’t supposed to be here.”

“I came to talk about the merger,” Marcus said. Then his gaze dropped to Robert. To Vivian. To the baton in Hawthorne’s hand. “This isn’t a merger.”

“No,” William agreed coolly. “It’s a resolution.”

Marcus took a step forward. “Stop it.”

The room went very still.

Hawthorne paused mid-motion, glancing at William for instruction. The men along the walls shifted subtly, hands near concealed weapons.

William studied his son for a long moment. “This is how the world works,” he said quietly. “You should pay attention.”

“That’s enough,” Marcus said, louder now. “You’ve made your point.”

Robert coughed, blood splattering the floor.

William’s jaw tightened. “Leave, Marcus.”

“No.”

For a fraction of a second, something dangerous flashed in William Ashford’s eyes. Then it was gone, replaced by steel.

“James.”

Hawthorne didn’t hesitate.

He raised the baton and brought it down one final time—straight to Robert Cross’s skull.

The sound was sickening.

Vivian’s scream tore free as the world collapsed.

Her father slumped forward, lifeless, his body crumpling like a marionette with its strings cut. Blood pooled beneath him, mixing with rainwater, staining everything it touched.

Marcus stared in horror, face ashen. His mouth opened, but no sound came out.

William Ashford turned away, already done. “Clean this up.”

The man holding Vivian loosened his grip, distracted for half a second by the movement in the room.

It was enough.

Vivian bit down hard on his hand.

He shouted, jerking back. She twisted violently, slipping free, her small frame propelled by terror and instinct. She ran—not toward the stairs, not toward safety, but toward the side corridor that led to the service exits.

“Get her!” Hawthorne barked.

Vivian flew down the hallway, slipping on wet marble, lungs burning. She slammed into a door, shoved it open, and plunged into darkness. Alarms screamed to life behind her as systems rebooted too late to matter.

She burst out into the rain-soaked grounds, barefoot on gravel, dress torn, blood smeared across her hands and arms. The night swallowed her as she ran, branches clawing at her skin, thorns ripping fabric, fear driving her beyond exhaustion.

Behind her, voices shouted. Footsteps crashed through brush.

She didn’t look back.

She ran until her chest felt like it would explode, until her legs buckled beneath her. She stumbled into the trees beyond the estate, collapsing against a trunk, gasping for air.

The rain masked her sobs as she curled into herself, shaking uncontrollably.

She didn’t know how long she stayed there. Minutes. Hours. Time lost meaning.

Eventually, headlights cut through the darkness.

Vivian flinched, scrambling backward, heart racing as a black car slowed on the narrow road bordering the woods. The driver’s door opened, and a woman stepped out.

She was elegant even in the rain, silver hair pulled back, dark coat impeccably tailored. Her eyes—sharp, intelligent, and devastatingly sad—found Vivian instantly.

“Oh, my dear,” the woman whispered.

Vivian tried to crawl away, panic surging again. “Please,” she sobbed. “Don’t take me back.”

The woman knelt despite the mud, holding out her hands. “I won’t. I promise.”

“Who are you?” Vivian demanded weakly.

The woman hesitated, then spoke softly. “My name is Elena Rothschild. And the men who did this to you took my son, too.”

Something in her voice—grief tempered into iron—cut through Vivian’s terror.

Elena shrugged off her coat and wrapped it around the girl’s shaking shoulders. “You’re safe now,” she said, though her eyes glistened with unshed tears. “As safe as anyone can be.”

Vivian collapsed into her arms, the last of her strength giving way.

Behind them, far up the hill, sirens wailed as authorities finally arrived at the Cross estate. Explanations would be crafted. Evidence buried. Names protected.

Inside the shattered house, Marcus Ashford stood alone in the blood-soaked living room, staring at the empty space where a girl had been moments before.

He would never forget her face.

And Vivian Cross would never forget his silence.