Chapter 1 They Found my Son

I can't breathe.

Someone's hand is on my shoulder. Pressing down. The marble floor is cold against my cheek, slick with something wet. My blood? I try to turn my head but can't. Voices fade in and out, warping like bad reception.

"–told you she wouldn't cooperate–"

"–needs to disappear–"

"–unfortunate complication–"

A glass rolls from my limp fingers. Champagne pools on white marble. My phone is ringing somewhere. Nasir's ringtone. I need to answer. I need to tell him–

Pain slices through my abdomen. Sharp. Absolute. Dark spots cloud my vision.

"Make sure there's nothing left to find."

The voice is familiar. I should know it. I try to speak but my tongue is too thick, useless. A shoe comes into view. Expensive. Italian leather. Then a face bending down. A face I know.

"You should have stayed away from my brother."

Darkness.

***

I bolt upright, gasping. Sweat soaks my silk nightgown. My heart hammers so hard that I can feel it in my fingertips, and my throat.

3:14 AM. Again.

The penthouse is silent except for my ragged breathing and the distant hum of the city that never quite goes dark. My hands find the scar on my lower abdomen–thin, raised, a question mark etched into my skin.

Fifteen years, and I still don't remember how I got it. Don't remember anything beyond fragments of that night. Just the marble floor. The pain. The shoe.

And the certainty that I needed to run.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed. My throat is desert-dry. The dreams are getting worse. More frequent. Like my subconscious is trying to warn me about something.

Down the hall, Koda's door is cracked open. I always leave it that way now. After fifteen years of running, of hiding, of building a life where I control every variable, there's still one thing that terrifies me: the night his oxygen levels crashed without warning. The night I almost lost him.

I peer in. He's asleep, one arm flung above his head. In sleep, the resemblance to his father is painful. The same curls. The same stubborn set to his mouth. I try not to dwell on it during daylight hours, but at 3:14 AM, the truth is harder to avoid: my son is becoming the man I ran from. The man who doesn't know he exists.

The tiny beeps of medical equipment create a beat in the dark. A reminder of what is at stake.

"Another nightmare?"

I don't startle at Vivienne's voice. After fifteen years as my shadow, my protector, my one confidante, I'm used to her materializing from corners.

"Just checking on him," I whisper, the lie automatic between us.

"His oxygen levels dropped again tonight." Vivienne sits in the corner chair, her tablet casting blue light across her angular face. "Dr. Sengupta called while you were asleep. The experimental protocol isn't working."

Something cold and heavy settles in my stomach. Fear has a physical weight, I've discovered. It sits like stone.

"We'll find something else," I say, more to convince myself than her.

"Amelia," Vivienne hesitates – which immediately puts me on alert. Vivienne never hesitates. "Have you considered reaching out to–"

"No." The word cuts between us like a blade. Final.

In the kitchen, I fumble with the electric kettle. My hands won't stop shaking, and that makes me angry. I've built an empire on never showing weakness. On being the woman no one can read, the one who always has contingency plans for her contingency plans.

But right now, I feel like I'm running out of options.

I make tea I won't drink and open my laptop. I shouldn't do this. I do it anyway, typing the name I've sworn never to search.

*Nasir Leviné.*

There he is. Still devastatingly handsome, but with silver at his temples now. Still with those eyes that see too much. I spent years training myself not to look for him, not to wonder. Not to imagine the rage he must have felt waking up to find me gone. No explanation. No goodbye. Just...vanished.

I skim the headlines beneath his image:

- "Human Rights Attorney Announces Senate Bid"

- "Leviné Promises Tech Regulation Reform"

- "Leviné Campaign Struggles with 'Cold Bachelor' Image"

I click the last one before I can stop myself.

*"Political analysts suggest Leviné's bachelor status may hurt his family values platform. 'Voters connect with candidates who reflect traditional family structures,' explains political strategist Karim Nassar. 'Senator Williams' team is already using the 'cold bachelor' narrative against him.'"*

A sound escapes me, not quite a laugh or a sob. Nasir Leviné, suffering from not having a family. The irony burns.

My laptop pings with a notification from Koda's medical portal. New test results. I click, my stomach dropping as I scan numbers that should be improving but are getting worse instead.

I'm still staring at the screen when an email arrives from an unfamiliar address: tyler.levine@titanmedia.com. Subject line: "Family Matters."

The room suddenly feels colder. I click. An attachment loads: a photo of Koda entering his school yesterday. My son, with his headphones on, face half-hidden behind curls so like his father's, completely unaware he was being watched.

Three lines of text beneath it:

*Did you think you could hide him forever?

Time we talked, Amelia.

Some secrets are too expensive to keep.*

My phone buzzes with a text from Vivienne: *Someone accessed Koda's medical files remotely. Not a hospital breach. Targeted.*

Fifteen years of running. Of hiding. Of building a fortress around my son. All crumbling in a single night.

I look out at the city lights, seeing nothing but my own reflection in the window glass. A woman whose carefully constructed control is slipping. The woman I swore I'd never be again after that night at the Meridian Hotel.

They found us. They found my son.

The dream fragments float back – marble floor, champagne glass, Italian shoes.

*"You should have stayed away from my brother."*

And now I know whose voice it was in my nightmare.

Tyler Leviné has found me. Which means sooner or later, I'll have to face his brother. The man I never stopped seeing in my son's eyes.