Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN WHO STOLE A DEAD MAN’S CHILDThe transfusion began under armed guard.
Adrian sat beside Ethan’s bed while his blood traveled through a clear tube into the body of the child he had believed was his for seven years.
I stood on the other side, holding Ethan’s limp hand.
The sight should have comforted me.
Instead, the laboratory report burned inside my mind.
Damian Blackwood — 99.98%.
Impossible.
Seven years earlier, there had been only Adrian.
I remembered the night with painful clarity.
Rain had hammered against the windows of the hotel suite. Adrian had arrived wounded, his shirt dark with blood after an ambush. I had been a junior nurse then, working a private event downstairs.
He had ordered everyone away.
Everyone except me.
I cleaned the bullet wound in his side while he watched me with those dangerous gray eyes.
“You should be afraid,” he had said.
“I am.”
“Then why are your hands steady?”
“Because fear does not stop bleeding.”
For three days, I stayed with him.
For three days, the most feared man in Los Angeles became simply Adrian—a man who woke from nightmares, hated silence, and carried grief like a second skeleton.
On the last night, he kissed me.
By sunrise, I knew I had crossed into a world I could never survive.
Two months later, I discovered I was pregnant.
Then men came to my apartment and told me Adrian had ordered the problem removed.
I ran before they could finish the sentence.
I changed my name.
I disappeared.
And I never told him about Ethan.
Now Adrian sat beside our son while a test claimed another man was the father.
The transfusion monitor beeped steadily.
Ethan’s heartbeat strengthened.
For the first time in an hour, his color began to return.
Adrian watched him with an expression so tender it hurt to see.
Then the trauma-room doors burst open.
A masked man fired twice.
Adrian moved before anyone else.
He threw himself over Ethan.
The bullets struck the metal frame above the bed.
His guards returned fire, dropping the attacker before he crossed the room.
The man collapsed near my feet.
A silver serpent gleamed on his chest.
Adrian pulled off the attacker’s mask.
Beneath it was a face I recognized.
My former obstetrician.
“Dr. Vale?” I whispered.
His lips were already turning gray.
Adrian seized him by the collar.
“What did you do?”
Vale smiled through blood.
“I delivered the heir.”
“You delivered Ethan?” Adrian demanded.
The doctor looked at me.
“No,” he wheezed. “I delivered the experiment.”
My blood went cold.
Adrian tightened his grip. “Explain.”
Vale’s eyes rolled toward the transfusion tube.
“The Blackwood brothers carried a rare regenerative blood mutation. Damian wanted an heir with the mutation stabilized. Your woman was already pregnant.”
“I was pregnant with Adrian’s child,” I said.
Vale gave a weak laugh.
“You were pregnant with someone’s child.”
Adrian struck him hard enough to break teeth.
“Whose?”
Vale coughed blood across the floor.
“Your father’s empire did not trust nature. We altered the embryo.”
The words did not make sense.
I stared at him.
“You did what?”
“During your first prenatal examination, you were sedated. Cells were introduced. Damian’s genetic material. Adrian’s markers. Experimental treatment.”
My knees nearly failed.
“You changed my baby?”
“We perfected him.”
Adrian’s eyes became murderous.
“You turned a child into a laboratory project.”
Vale smiled.
“Not a child. A key.”
The lights flickered.
An explosion shook the building from below.
The doctor’s smile widened.
“Damian does not want Ethan because he is his son.”
Adrian leaned closer.
“Then why?”
“Because Ethan’s blood can cure him.”
Vale died before he could explain further.
Across the room, Ethan’s eyes opened.
“Mom?”
I rushed to him.
His small fingers curled around mine.
Then he looked at Adrian.
For several seconds, father and son stared at each other.
Ethan’s voice was weak.
“Are you the bad man everyone is scared of?”
Adrian swallowed.
“Yes.”
Ethan considered that.
“Are you here to hurt my mom?”
“No.”
“Are you here to hurt me?”
Adrian’s expression cracked.
“Never.”
Ethan reached toward him.
Adrian hesitated before taking his hand.
“My mom said my dad was gone,” Ethan whispered.
Adrian looked at me.
Pain moved between us.
Then Ethan squeezed his fingers.
“Were you lost?”
Adrian bowed his head.
“Yes,” he said. “I was very lost.”
A new alarm sounded from the hallway.
Security monitors flashed to a live feed from the hospital lobby.
A tall man stepped through the smoke wearing a black coat and no mask.
He had Adrian’s eyes.
Adrian’s face.
Adrian’s blood.
But a long burn scar twisted across one side of his neck.
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Damian looked into the camera and smiled.
“Little brother,” he said, “come meet the man who created your son.”
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