Chapter 7: The Paris File
1724 Words
The conference room felt like a tomb.
Alexander stood by the door, his hand on the frame, watching me with those dark, hungry eyes. He had just dropped a bomb at my feet. Saint-Vincent-de-Paul. A birth certificate. A child with no father listed.
He knew enough to destroy me.
“Well?” His voice was soft. Dangerous. “No denials? No clever deflection?”
I gripped the edge of the table. My knuckles were white. “You’re bluffing.”
“I don’t bluff.” He walked back toward me, slow, deliberate. “I have a team in Paris right now. They’re waiting for my call. One phone call, Elena, and I have the name. ”
My heart hammered. Think. Think. “Even if you find a record—even if there is a child—it doesn’t mean the child is mine.”
“The mother’s name is Elena Sterling.”
“There are hundreds of Elena Sterlings in the world.”
“Not in Paris. Not in that hospital. Not on that date.” He stopped inches from me. His hand came up, his fingers brushing a strand of hair from my face. “You were there, Elena. I can feel it. ”
I stepped back. “You can feel it? That’s your evidence?”
“I don’t need evidence. I need confirmation.” He dropped his hand. “Tell me the truth. Right now. Is there a child? ”
The word sat on my tongue. Yes. His name is Theo. He has your eyes and your stubbornness and he just sent you an anonymous email because he was trying to protect me.
But I couldn’t say it.
If I said it, Alexander would take him. The Blackwood lawyers would file for custody. The courts would side with the billionaire over the single mother who’d run away and hidden his son for four years.
I would lose everything.
“No,” I said. My voice was steady. My face was a mask. “There is no child.”
Alexander studied me. The silence stretched, thick and suffocating. Then he smiled. It was cold. Calculating. The smile of a man who had already made up his mind.
“You’re lying. But that’s fine.” He walked to the table and picked up his phone. “I’ll let Paris do the talking.”
He dialed.
My blood turned to ice.
“Yes,” Alexander said into the phone. “I need you to pull the full record. Saint-Vincent-de-Paul. Elena Sterling. Four years ago. ”
I stood frozen. My legs wouldn’t move. My voice wouldn’t come.
Theo. Oh God, Theo.
“No,” Alexander said into the phone. His expression shifted. Flickered. “What do you mean, ‘sealed’?”
A pause. His jaw tightened.
“By whose authority?”
Another pause. His eyes cut to me—sharp, questioning, furious.
“I see.” He hung up.
The room was silent.
“The records are sealed,” he said. His voice was flat. “French court order. Two years ago. Someone went to a lot of trouble to make sure that birth certificate stayed hidden.”
I didn’t speak. I couldn’t.
“Who helped you, Elena?” He stepped closer. “Marcus? Does he have connections in Paris? Did he pay to have your secrets buried? ”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re a terrible liar.” He grabbed my wrist. Not hard—but firm. Possessive. “I’m going to unseal those records. I’m going to find out what you’re hiding. And when I do, you’re going to wish you’d told me the truth today. ”
He released me and walked toward the door.
“Alexander.”
He stopped. Didn’t turn.
“Even if there was a child,” I said, my voice shaking despite my best efforts, “what would you do? Walk in and play father? You don’t even know if it’s yours.”
He turned then. His eyes were dark. Unreadable.
“If it’s mine,” he said slowly, “I would take what belongs to me. ”
The door closed behind him.
I stood in the empty conference room, my hand pressed against my chest, my heart trying to claw its way out.
Take what belongs to me.
He meant Theo.
I didn’t remember leaving the building.
I didn’t remember getting into the cab.
I didn’t remember walking through the doors of Dalton Academy.
But suddenly I was there, standing outside Theo’s classroom, watching him through the small window in the door.
He was sitting at a tiny desk, his dark head bent over a worksheet. His small fingers held a pencil. He was writing something. He looked so small. So fragile. So impossibly precious.
And Alexander wanted to take him.
“Elena.”
Marcus appeared beside me, his face tight with worry. “What happened? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Worse.” I turned to him. “He found the hospital. Saint-Vincent-de-Paul. ”
Marcus’s face went pale. “The records—”
“Sealed. French court order. He doesn’t have the name yet. But he’s going to unseal them. ”
Marcus grabbed my arm. “We need to move. Now. Take Theo. Go back to Paris. Disappear again. ”
I looked through the window at my son. He looked up suddenly, as if he felt my gaze. His eyes met mine. Alexander’s eyes.
And he smiled.
That small, rare smile that made everything worth it.
“No,” I said.
Marcus stared at me. “What?”
“I’m done running.” I turned away from the window. “I ran four years ago. I ran to Paris. I built an empire. And he still found me. ”
“Elena—”
“If I run again, he’ll just follow. And next time, he won’t stop at sealed records. He’ll tear apart the whole city to find us. ”
“So what’s your plan? Stay and fight?”
I looked at Marcus. He was a good man. A loyal friend. But he didn’t understand. He didn’t have a child.
“My plan,” I said, “is to make sure that when Alexander Blackwood unseals those records, he finds exactly what I want him to find. ”
Marcus’s brow furrowed. “What does that mean?”
I didn’t answer. I walked to the door of Theo’s classroom, pushed it open, and knelt beside his desk.
“Mommy?” He looked up, his pencil still in his hand. “You’re not supposed to be here until three.”
“I know, baby.” I brushed his dark hair off his forehead. “We’re going on a little trip. You and me. ”
His eyes widened. “Where?”
“Somewhere safe.” I took his hand. “Somewhere he can’t find us. Not yet. ”
He didn’t argue. He never argued. He just squeezed my hand and stood up.
“Do I need my tablet?”
“Yes.”
“Do I need Mr. Bubbles?”
I almost laughed. “There is no Mr. Bubbles, Theo.”
He looked up at me with those serious, dark eyes. “There will be. ”
Two hours later, we were on a private jet.
Marcus had made the arrangements. The plane was small, unobtrusive, registered to a shell company that didn’t exist on any Blackwood radar.
Theo sat across from me, his tablet in his lap, his small fingers already flying across the screen.
“I’m wiping the school’s servers,” he said matter-of-factly. “They won’t find any record of me ever being there. ”
I stared at him. “How do you know how to do that?”
“YouTube.”
Of course. YouTube.
“Theo.” I leaned forward. “Listen to me. The man from the gala—the ghost—he’s looking for us. ”
Theo didn’t look up. “I know.”
“How?”
“I traced his IP address back to his private server. ” He glanced at me. “He has a lot of security. But I’m better.”
My four-year-old son was better at hacking than Alexander Blackwood’s IT team.
I didn’t know whether to be proud or terrified.
“He can’t find us,” I said. “Do you understand? If he finds us, he’ll take you away from me. ”
Theo’s fingers stopped moving. He looked up. His dark eyes—Alexander’s eyes—were steady. Unblinking.
“He won’t find us, Mommy. ”
“How do you know?”
He held up his tablet. On the screen was a map of Europe. A red dot pulsed in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
“I rerouted the flight plan through three different countries. The plane we’re on doesn’t exist. The tickets don’t exist. We don’t exist. ”
I leaned back in my seat. My heart was pounding. But for the first time in days, I felt something close to hope.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
Theo smiled. That rare, beautiful smile.
“Somewhere he’ll never think to look. ”
The plane landed seven hours later.
I stepped off the gangway into warm, salt-tinged air. The sun was setting over a small island I’d never heard of—a speck in the Mediterranean that Marcus had bought years ago as a tax shelter.
A private island. No cell service. No internet. No Alexander.
Theo ran ahead, his shoes kicking up white sand, his laughter echoing across the empty beach.
I stood at the water’s edge and watched him.
He’ll never find us here.
But even as I thought it, my phone buzzed.
I looked at the screen.
One new message.
Unknown number: *Did you really think a private jet and a fake flight plan would stop me? I know where you are, Elena. I know about the island. I know about Marcus’s shell company. And I know about Theo. *
My blood ran cold.
Unknown number: *I’ll be there by morning. Don’t run again. There’s nowhere left to hide. *
I dropped the phone in the sand.
Theo was still laughing, chasing waves, oblivious to the storm heading straight for us.
The wolf had found the island.
And the mother had run out of time.
End of Chapter 7
- Writer
