Chapter 1
The chill of the hospital hallway seemed to seep directly into my bones as I stood clutching my newborn baby girl. Her delicate heart beat against my chest, a faint, rhythmic reminder that despite the nightmare unfolding around me, she was alive, fragile, and entirely dependent on me.
Her father, Mark, was already gone. I could still hear the harsh click of his polished dress shoes echoing down the linoleum corridor, blending with the clack of his mistress’s high heels. For three years, I had believed Mark when he told me he loved me. I had believed him when he said we were building a future together. But the moment the doctor announced our daughter had arrived, Mark took one look at her dark blue eyes, turned to his assistant, Brenda, and handed her my purse. He left me with nothing—no phone, no credit cards, no dignity.
"Call me when you can think clearly," he had spat over his shoulder.
And then he vanished, leaving me broke, exhausted, and broken on the floor of Saint Jude's Memorial.
Until the man in black stopped in front of me.
Luka Moretti was a presence that commanded the air around him. He towered over six feet two, broad-shouldered and sharp-featured, with ink sprawling across his knuckles, snaking up his neck, and disappearing beneath his crisp collar. His eyes were the color of molten iron, sharp and unnervingly perceptive. When he took the medical folder from the bewildered nurse and put his signature on the birth certificate, my jaw dropped.
"What are you doing?" I choked out, pushing my small body up against the cold wall. "You can't just sign that! You're a stranger!"
Luka calmly capped his sleek black pen and slipped it into his breast pocket. He didn't look like a stranger when he turned to face me; he looked like a storm that had been brewing for years, finally landing on my shore.
"My name is Luka Moretti," he said, his voice a low, raspy baritone. "And as far as the state of Illinois, the hospital board, and your ex-husband are concerned, I am now Maya's legal father."
"Maya?" I stammered, my pulse spiking. "How do you know her name? I haven't even registered it yet!"
"You named her after your mother," Luka replied flatly. "Maya Evelyn Hayes. Born at 4:12 AM. Weight: six pounds, four ounces." He stepped closer, his heavy shadow falling over us. "I know your name is Clara. I know your father was Arthur Hayes. And I know that Mark didn't leave you because he fell out of love. He left because he found out what Arthur left behind."
A cold tremor ran down my spine. My father had passed away two years ago in a mysterious car crash that the police had casually dismissed as an accident. He was a lead research scientist for Moretti Pharmaceuticals—a company owned by the very family standing before me.
"My father..." I whispered, pulling my baby tighter against my neck. "What does my father have to do with you? Or with Mark?"
"Arthur didn't die in an accident, Clara," Luka said, his gray eyes darkening with an icy, dangerous fury. "He was murdered. And Mark was paid half a million dollars by the board of Moretti Bio-Tech to keep you ignorant, isolated, and penniless so you would never claim your father's true estate."
Before I could process the terrifying weight of his words, the nurse returned, looking pale as she held a red-stamped medical folder labeled DEPARTMENT OF VITAL STATISTICS.
"Mr. Moretti," the nurse stammered, her voice shaking as she stole glances at Luka’s tattooed neck. "The chief of staff wants to know... are you taking the mother and child now? The discharge papers are finalized under your name."
Luka glanced down at my pale, trembling face, then lowered his gaze to baby Maya, who had opened her tiny mouth in a soft yawn.
"We're leaving," Luka said softly. "Bring a wheelchair for my wife."
May you like
"Wife?!" I practically screamed.
Luka leaned down until his breath brushed against my temple. "If you want to keep your daughter alive past midnight, Clara, you'll play along. Mark isn't going home to his apartment. He’s going to a private vault to wipe file M-17 from your father's mainframe. And if he realizes you're still alive to claim it, he won't hesitate to finish what he started."
