Chapter17
1848 Words
CHAPTER 17
James stood by the tall windows, watching the city hum below. Rachel entered, her heels clicking sharply.
“I did what you asked,” she said. “Background on Celia Montenegro.”
James turned. “And?”
Rachel handed him a folder. “She wasn’t just a cartel princess. She was working with INTERPOL. Undercover, infiltrating her own father’s empire.”
James opened the folder, stunned.
“She flipped?” he muttered.
Rachel nodded. “But the moment they found out, the warehouse went up in flames. And Adam disappeared with the child.”
James paced. “So now Adam’s not just a mafia boss, he’s also tied to a dead INTERPOL agent and a secret child born into a drug empire. This just keeps getting better.”
Rachel leaned forward. “You know what we need to do, right?”
James smirked. “Leak it. All of it.”
Rachel grinned. “Let’s burn him.”
Before he could say anything further, he remembered Xandros warning of not doing anything reckless, or doing anything without carrying him along.
But Xandros wouldn't buy into this idea of revealing Adam's dirty secret and he knew it. Xandros liked his movement slow and steady with more productive result, but James of course doesn't have time for that - he liked immediate action and faster results.
He still wouldn't dare do anything without Xandros permission though - Xandros could cut off one of his legs this time around since it was just a punch in the face the last time.
“Make sure you keep everything to yourself for now. Don't go about talking to just anybody about it.” He told her.
She looked at him somewhat confused “aren't we leaking all these information about him again?”
“We are, but not immediately.” He responded.
“We don't have time. Adam could strike any moment from now. You already know how dangerous he is yet you still want to take your time?”
“I no longer have autonomous power to just make decisions like that - I need a go ahead from a certain man.” He drew out one of his chairs and sat down.
Rachel folded her hands across her chest and gave him a look that says ‘explain yourself Mr man’.
“How do you think I got to know about the child?” James continued. “Someone somewhere is helping me take Adam down but I have to stick to his rules.”
“What if that son of a b***h comes for you before you even get to leak his secrets and gets rid of the evidence like he did the last time.” She questioned.
“Well, we just have to be two steps ahead.”
* * * * *
Adam stood by the window, jaw clenched. “It wasn’t the staff. She came at me too direct; like someone gave her the information neatly packaged.”
Rufus paused. “Then there’s only one person who could’ve fed her.”
“James?” Adam arched a brow. “He wouldn’t know about Liam. That part of my life is locked up tighter than Fort Knox.”
Rufus crossed his arms. “Unless he’s working with someone who does know.”
There was a beat of silence, heavy and electric.
Rufus added, “If James is digging through your private history with someone backing him, you might want to… you know, send a ‘goodbye card.’ Maybe with a bullet in it.”
“James is the only family Belle has. I'm not sure I want to send him a goodbye card.”
Rufus blinked. “Don’t tell me you’ve gone soft.”
“I’m not soft,” Adam muttered.
Rufus smirked. “Since when do you care about the family of the people you eliminate? Is this the new mafia moral code? No killing relatives of your wife?”
Adam shot him a look. “Don’t be annoying.”
“I’m just saying—”
“I know what you’re saying,” Adam snapped. “But Belle’s already spiraling. If she loses James – even that annoying, nosy bastard – she’ll break.”
Rufus made a sound that landed somewhere between a scoff and a chuckle. “Man’s been in love for five minutes and now he’s got ethics.”
Adam ignored him, walking toward the bar and pouring himself a glass of whiskey. He didn’t drink it.
“Liam isn’t safe,” he said quietly.
Rufus’s posture changed immediately.
“Spain?” he asked.
Adam nodded. “We need to move him. Discreetly. If anyone’s trying to track my past, that’s where they’ll look next.”
“I’ll handle it.”
“No,” Adam interrupted. “I want to go myself.”
Rufus blinked. “What, you don’t trust me now?”
“It’s not that,” Adam said. “I haven’t seen him in over six months.”
Rufus raised a brow. “So now you want to be a father?”
Adam didn’t answer. He simply took the whiskey and walked out, the glass still untouched.
—
He didn't want anyone to see him leave.
Not Belle, not Emma, not even the staff.
The driver met him in the garage at midnight with a black duffel bag and a set of travel documents. Adam had his own jet – of course he did – but flying it would raise flags. And this visit? This had to be invisible.
So, for the first time in nearly a decade, Adam Hamilton booked first class on a commercial airline. But there was no available spot. Business class? No spot either. So he either had to wait for the next flight or join economy. He chose the latter.
Surrounded by three crying babies, a man who took off his shoes and rested his socked feet on the armrest, and a woman next to him who mistook him for a former actor on some telenovela called ‘Hearts Like Daggers’.
“I know you’re him!” she whispered, eyes wide with excitement. “The villain who stabbed Rosa at the wedding altar. My sister and I watched it every Friday!”
Adam stared at her in silence for a beat before deadpanning, “She had it coming.”
The woman gasped, grabbed his hand, and started texting someone furiously.
Rufus would’ve laughed his lungs out.
Adam adjusted his hoodie and sunk lower in his seat, wondering how he went from the shadows of power to being mistaken for a B-list drama star.
He closed his eyes. For the next few hours, he tried not to think about Belle’s voice, the hurt in it when she asked him about Liam. Tried not to wonder if she hated him now. If this was the point where everything finally collapsed.
By morning, he was in Valencia.
It was warmer than he remembered. Quieter too. And for a man who had spent the last few years surrounded by bodyguards, bullets, and betrayal, the silence felt like stepping into a dream he didn’t deserve.
The house was on the edge of a vineyard. Hidden. Protected. A retired MI6 agent and his wife posed as the housekeepers. If you blinked twice, the entire property looked like it belonged to a wine enthusiast with a taste for bad landscaping.
When Adam stepped through the gates, he caught the scent of oranges and earth and... Play-Doh?
And then he saw him.
Liam.
Six years old. Curly black hair, sharp brown eyes, and a stubborn little pout that he definitely got from his father.
He was sitting under the shade of a tree with toy cars lined up like an illegal street race. His little fingers were dirt-smudged. His face was serious, like a war general deciding which Hot Wheels deserved mercy.
He looked up. “Daddy?”
Adam froze.
God, he hadn’t heard that word in months.
“Hey, buddy,” he said, voice rougher than he meant.
Liam stood, wiped his hands on his shirt (which did absolutely nothing), and ran to him.
Adam knelt, catching the boy in a hug that was tighter than he expected. Liam smelled like mud and cookies and crayon wrappers.
“You’re taller,” Adam murmured, ruffling his hair.
“You’re late,” Liam replied with a scowl that had too much attitude for someone under four feet tall. “You said you’d visit when I turned six. I’ve been six for like... ten weeks.”
Adam chuckled. “I got... busy.”
“Were you in a jail?” Liam asked innocently.
“No.”
“A gang fight?”
“No.”
“Did you fake your death again?”
Adam blinked. “That was once. And you weren’t supposed to know about that.”
Liam smirked. “I hear things.”
Adam laughed for real this time. “Of course you do.”
The housekeeper stepped out with a wave. Adam gave a polite nod, then turned back to his son.
“You wanna take a walk?”
“Can I bring my cars?”
“Sure.”
“Even the one that explodes when you press the roof?”
“…Maybe leave that one.”
They walked through the vineyard path, Liam talking non-stop about his new obsession with dinosaurs and how the neighbor’s cat “definitely works for the CIA.”
Adam listened, quietly cataloging every word, every moment, like he was trying to trap time in a jar.
And for a little while, it felt like peace.
But even as Liam laughed beside him, Adam felt the weight creeping back in.
He crouched beside Liam again, brushing hair from his forehead. “Hey, buddy. Would you like to go on a little vacation? Somewhere safer? Just you and your toys for a while?”
Liam tilted his head. “Is someone coming after me again?”
Adam stiffened.
“Because last time,” Liam continued matter-of-factly, “you said I should pretend to be asleep while Miss Kara pointed a gun at the window.”
“Jesus,” Adam muttered under his breath. “No. This is just... to be safe. That’s all.”
Liam nodded like a CEO approving a contract. “Okay. But I’m bringing my exploding car.”
Adam gave a tight smile. “Of course you are.”
By evening, arrangements had been made. A secure jet. A temporary new location. Everything was in motion.
As Adam watched Liam fall asleep with his little arm draped over a plush dinosaur, he stepped outside, pulling his phone from his pocket.
There were three missed calls from Belle.
And a message.
> “Rufus told me you went on a business trip. Am I supposed to believe that?”
He didn’t reply.
He couldn’t.
Because the truth was…
He didn’t know how much more she could take.
And how much longer he could keep it all from unraveling.
Behind him, a shadow moved near the vineyard wall.
Someone was watching.
- Writer
