Cruel Inheritance

CHAPTER ONE

Present Day — Five Years Later

The bakery smelled of flour and lavender.

Kira tied back her hair, wiped her hands on her apron, and smiled at the elderly woman buying yesterday's bread at half price. The woman smiled back. Everyone smiled back in this little coastal town. No one asked questions. No one knew her real name.

Here, she was Kira Moreau. Widow. Single mother. Quiet woman with sad eyes who made excellent croissants.

Not Kira Rosso. Not the woman who had been married. Not the woman whose husband had abandoned her for a betrayal she did not commit.

Not the woman who had given birth alone, raised a child alone, and spent every night of five years sleeping with one eye open.

Here, she was safe.

Or so she had told herself.

"Mama. Mama. MAMA."

Sofia tugged on her apron strings. Four years old, dark curls escaping her ponytail, eyes the color of espresso — Damien's eyes — and a grin that could c***k stones.

"What, my love?"

"I'm hungry."

"You're always hungry."

Sofia nodded seriously. "Because my heart needs fuel."

Kira's own heart clenched. Sofia said it so casually. My heart. As if it were normal for a four-year-old to take six pills a day. As if it were normal to turn blue in the bathtub. As if it were normal to have a cardiologist on speed dial.

"One croissant," Kira said, holding up a finger. "Then you eat your vegetables."

"Two croissants."

"One."

"One and a half."

"You're worse than the merchants in the old city."

Sofia grinned. It was Damien's grin. The same crooked tilt. The same flash of teeth. Kira saw it every day and buried the pain every night.

She handed Sofia a croissant. The girl bit into it with the enthusiasm of someone who had never known a day without hunger — thanks to Kira's three jobs and exhausted smile.

"Go sit in the back," Kira said. "I'll close up early today."

"Why?"

"Because I want to."

Sofia squinted at her. Four years old and already suspicious. Also Damien.

"You're lying."

"I'm your mother. I'm allowed to lie."

"That's not how lying works."

"Go."

Sofia went, croissant in hand, curls bouncing.

Kira leaned against the counter and pressed a hand to her chest. The panic comes in waves these days. A feeling she couldn't name. A shadow at the edge of her vision.

Someone is watching.

She had felt it for a week. A car that lingered too long. A figure in a dark coat. The prickle on the back of her neck meant danger.

She told herself it was nothing. Marco had forgotten her. Damien had moved on. She was nobody now. Just a baker in a small town with a sick child and a fake name.

But the eyes.

She shook off the feeling and locked the front door. Flipped the sign to CLOSED. She would take Sofia to the park. Let her run until her heart couldn't take it. Let herself pretend they were normal.

She turned.

A man stood in the doorway of the back room.

Not Marco.

Damien.

The air left Kira's lungs.

He looked different. Harder. His jaw was sharper, his cheekbones more pronounced, as if the last five years had carved away everything soft and left only bone and fury. His suit was black. His tie was black. His eyes were black.

But he was still the most beautiful man she had ever seen.

And he was looking at her daughter.

Sofia stood behind him, frozen, half-eaten croissant in her hand, eyes wide.

"Mama," Sofia whispered. "The scary man is here."

Damien's gaze moved from Sofia to Kira. His face was a mask of stone. No emotion. No recognition of the woman he had once loved.

"She has your eyes," he said.

Kira couldn't speak.

"The hair is his," he continued, stepping into the room. His shoes clicked on the tile. Each step was a hammer blow. "But the eyes. The stubborn chin. The way she squints." He stopped three feet from Kira. "She's Marco's, isn't she?"

Kira said nothing.

Because if she said no, he would demand a test.

If he demanded a test, Marco would know.

If Marco knew, Sofia would die.

So she said nothing.

Damien took her silence as confession.

"I've been looking for you for five years," he said quietly. "Do you know that? Five years of following ghosts. Five years of wondering where you went. Who you went with."

"I went alone."

"Don't."

The word was a whip c***k.

"I saw you, Kira. In bed with him. Don't tell me you went alone."

She opened her mouth. The truth sat on her tongue like a stone. I was drugged. Marco set us up. Sofia is yours. She's dying. Please. PLEASE.

But Marco's voice echoed in her memory, five years old but still sharp as glass:

Tell him the truth, and I'll kill what you love most.

"If you're here to kill me," Kira said quietly, "do it outside. Not in front of her."

Damien's jaw tightened.

"I'm not here to kill you."

"Then why are you here?"

He reached out. She flinched. His hand stopped midair, then lowered.

"I'm here," he said softly, "because I'm done wondering. You're coming with me. You and the girl both."

"No."

"It wasn't a question."

"You can't just —"

"I'm a billionaire, Kira." His voice was flat. Empty. "I can do whatever I want. And what I want is to watch you suffer the way I've suffered."

Her blood turned to ice.

"The girl," he continued, looking toward Sofia. "She's his. The proof of your betrayal."

Kira said nothing.

"Pack her things. Pack yours. You have ten minutes."

"And if I refuse?"

He looked back at her. For just a second, something flickered in his eyes. Something that might have been pain.

"Then I'll burn this bakery down with both of you inside."

He walked out.

Kira stood frozen for three heartbeats.

Then she ran to Sofia, gathered her in her arms, and wept.

Her daughter patted her face with small, sticky hands.

"Mama, don't cry. The scary man is gone."

"No, baby." Kira pressed her lips to Sofia's dark curls. "He's not gone. He's taking us home."

"His home?"

Kira closed her eyes.

"Yes, baby. His home."

And he thinks you're proof of my betrayal.

He doesn't know you're his.

And I can never tell him.