Chapter 2

Bella stared at the shattered crystal on the floor. Her chest heaved with ragged, furious breaths.

She dropped her phone. It hit the Italian marble floor with a sharp crack, the screen splintering into a spiderweb of broken glass.

She stepped forward. The sharp heel of her designer stiletto crushed the broken phone screen, grinding the glass into a fine powder against the stone.

She turned to the two massive security guards standing by the doorway.

"Expand the search," Bella ordered, her voice dropping to a venomous hiss. "Check the clinics. Check the homeless shelters. She has no money. She can't hide forever."

Months later.

The air inside the rundown Brooklyn clinic smelled of cheap bleach and old sweat. The fluorescent lights overhead flickered, casting a sickly yellow glow on the peeling paint of the walls.

Alisson Ford sat on the edge of a hard, plastic examination chair.

She wore a faded, oversized gray sweater that she had bought from a thrift store for two dollars. Her hands gripped the bottom hem of the sweater, her knuckles completely white.

The heavy weight of her swollen belly pulled painfully at her lower back.

Dr. Fletcher, an older man with tired eyes, wiped the cold ultrasound gel off her stomach with a rough paper towel. He pulled his stool back and looked at her, his expression grim.

"Alisson," Dr. Fletcher said, his voice low. "I need you to understand the reality of this situation. You are carrying triplets. It is an extremely rare, extremely high-risk pregnancy. Your body is already failing."

Alisson bit the inside of her cheek. The familiar taste of copper flooded her mouth.

"Given your severe malnutrition and the lack of proper prenatal care," the doctor continued, pointing to the blurry black-and-white monitor. "The strain on your heart is massive. I strongly advise a fetal reduction. If you try to carry all three to term, you will likely die."

Alisson's hands moved from the hem of her sweater to rest on her massive stomach.

She felt a sudden, sharp kick against her palm.

A fierce, primal heat flared in her chest, burning away the cold fear that had lived in her bones for the past few months. These children were the only things in the world that belonged to her. They were her blood.

"No," Alisson said. Her voice was quiet, but it did not shake. "I am keeping them. All of them."

Dr. Fletcher sighed, shaking his head. He handed her a small bottle of generic prenatal vitamins. "Then you need to rest. Do not exert yourself."

Alisson took the bottle, pushed herself off the chair, and walked out into the freezing wind.

She took two buses and walked six blocks to return to her hiding place. It was a damp, windowless basement beneath an old, crumbling apartment building in Queens.

She unlocked the rusted iron door and pushed it open. The hinges screamed in protest.

The moment she stepped inside the freezing room, a violent, tearing pain ripped through her abdomen.

Alisson gasped. Her knees buckled instantly.

She collapsed onto the cold, concrete floor. A sudden gush of warm fluid soaked through her cheap sweatpants, pooling on the dusty ground.

Her water broke.

The pain hit her again, harder this time, feeling like a serrated knife dragging across her spine. The babies were coming. It was too early.

She dragged her body across the rough concrete, her fingernails scraping against the floor. She needed to reach the old flip phone resting on the wobbly wooden nightstand.

Her fingertips brushed the edge of the table.

Crash.

The rusted iron door was kicked open with such explosive force that the metal lock completely snapped off the frame.

Alisson jerked her head up, her vision swimming with pain.

Bella Lucas stepped into the dim basement. She wore a pristine white cashmere coat and expensive red stiletto heels. The sharp clicking of her shoes echoed against the concrete walls.

Behind her stood Rico, a massive, heavily scarred enforcer on the Lucas family payroll.

Bella looked down at Alisson writhing on the floor. A slow, twisted smile spread across Bella's perfectly painted lips.

"Look at you," Bella sneered, her voice dripping with absolute disgust. "Like a filthy rat dying in a sewer."

Another contraction hit. Alisson let out a choked scream, her hands flying to her stomach, desperately trying to protect the lives inside her. She glared up at Bella, her eyes burning with pure hatred.

"Rico," Bella commanded lazily.

The massive man stepped forward. He grabbed Alisson's wrists with one massive hand and slammed them down onto the concrete, pinning her completely flat.

Alisson thrashed wildly, but his weight was an immovable boulder.

The physical agony of childbirth tore through her body. Without medical help, without painkillers, Alisson screamed until her vocal cords tore.

In the midst of the absolute terror and blinding pain, the first baby was born.

A weak, fragile cry pierced the damp air of the basement. A boy.

Bella's eyes widened. A sick, greedy light ignited in her pupils. She needed a child to secure her place in high society. She needed a bargaining chip to force her way into the Yates family.

Bella stepped forward. She did not care about the blood or the fluids. She reached down between Alisson's legs and roughly grabbed the tiny, crying infant.

Alisson's eyes rolled back in horror. Her maternal instinct exploded, giving her a sudden surge of adrenaline.

"Give him back!" Alisson shrieked, her voice a raw, bloody sound. She yanked her arms, tearing the skin on her wrists against Rico's grip. "Give me my son!"

Bella held the baby away from her coat, looking at Alisson with cold, dead eyes.

She nodded at Rico.

Rico let go of Alisson. He reached into his heavy duffel bag and pulled out a large, industrial plastic jug. He unscrewed the cap.

The sharp, toxic smell of industrial gasoline instantly flooded the small room, burning the inside of Alisson's nose.

Rico kicked the jug over. The clear liquid spilled rapidly across the concrete, soaking into the old mattress and pooling around Alisson's legs.

Bella turned around, holding the crying infant tight against her chest. She pulled a silver lighter from her pocket. She sparked the flame, the small fire illuminating her malicious face.

She tossed the lighter over her shoulder.

It hit the gasoline-soaked mattress.

Whoosh.

A wall of orange flames erupted instantly. The fire roared to life, eating the oxygen in the room within seconds.

Bella walked out the door, her cruel laughter mixing with the baby's cries. She pulled the heavy iron door shut from the outside. The sound of a heavy padlock clicking into place echoed through the metal.

Thick, black smoke billowed toward the ceiling. The heat became unbearable, blistering the skin on Alisson's arms.

Tears streamed down her face, instantly evaporating in the extreme heat. She was going to die here.

But the fire did something else. The extreme physical shock triggered another massive, violent contraction.

Alisson bit down on her lip, tasting blood. The primal need to save her remaining children overpowered the fear of the flames.

Surrounded by a ring of fire, coughing on the toxic smoke, Alisson pushed with every ounce of strength left in her dying body.

She delivered the second baby. A boy.

Minutes later, as the wooden ceiling beams began to crack and splinter from the heat, she delivered the third. A girl.

Alisson ripped off her oversized sweater. She wrapped the two tiny, barely breathing infants tightly against her bare chest. She curled her body into a tight ball over them, using her own flesh and bone as a physical shield against the blistering heat.

Her vision went completely black. The smoke filled her lungs.

Her hand blindly slapped against the floor. Her fingers hit the old flip phone that had fallen from the nightstand. It had landed in a shallow puddle of water from a broken pipe, miraculously shielding it from the immediate flames. The plastic casing was dangerously hot to the touch, but still intact.

She flipped it open. Her bloody, ash-covered thumb pressed the speed dial button. The only number she had sworn never to call. Hilary's world was a ruthless, blood-soaked underworld; contacting him meant painting a permanent target on her back and drawing his enemies straight to her unborn children. She had chosen starvation over exposing them to his mafia wars, but now, she had no choice.

The private line of her mysterious adoptive brother, Hilary Strong.

The line clicked open.

"Queens... 42nd Street basement..." Alisson croaked, her throat raw and bleeding.

The phone slipped from her hand. Her head hit the concrete. She lost consciousness.

Seven minutes later.

The roar of heavy machinery shattered the night sky over Queens. Three black, unmarked tactical helicopters hovered directly above the burning apartment building.

Six men in full tactical gear repelled down ropes, landing on the pavement outside the basement.

They did not bother with the padlock. A shaped explosive charge blew the iron door entirely off its hinges.

The tactical team rushed into the inferno.

They found Alisson in the corner. Her back was severely burned, her skin blistered and charred. But her arms were locked in a death grip around the two small bundles against her chest.

"Target secured! We have two live infants!" the team leader yelled into his radio, lifting Alisson's unconscious body into his arms.

They rushed her out of the flames and into the cool night air, loading her onto the waiting medical helicopter.