Chapter 2 - THE LITTLE BOY WHO CALLED HER MOMMYVincent couldn't move.
The little boy had wrapped both arms around Anna's waist, pressing his face against her dress. His dark hair was slightly messy, and one tiny hand clutched the silver bracelet around her wrist.
Anna bent down and kissed his forehead.
“Are you all right, sweetheart?”
The boy nodded.
Vincent stared at them.
Three years.
Three years of waking up in the middle of the night hearing an explosion that never stopped echoing in his head. Three years of keeping his wife's photograph beside his bed. Three years of believing that the woman he had abandoned inside that aircraft had died carrying their child.
And now she was standing in front of him.
Alive.
With a little boy.
“Anna.”
She went completely still.
Slowly, she raised her head.
Their eyes met across the crowded ballroom.
For one second, Vincent saw the woman who had once kissed him goodbye every morning. The woman who had fallen asleep against his shoulder during long flights. The woman who had looked at him with absolute trust before he walked away from her.
But the expression on her face wasn't love.
It was fear.
Then recognition.
And finally, something much worse.
Contempt.
“Anna,” he repeated, taking a step forward.
She immediately pulled the boy behind her.
“Don't.”
The single word stopped him.
Sophia appeared beside Vincent, breathing heavily after struggling to catch up.
“What is happening?” she demanded.
Then she saw Anna.
Her champagne glass slipped from her fingers and shattered against the marble floor.
“That's impossible.”
Anna's gaze shifted toward her.
For three years, she had imagined this moment.
She had imagined Vincent finding her, falling to his knees, begging forgiveness. She had imagined him explaining why he had chosen Sophia first.
But she had never imagined standing in a ballroom with her son between them while the woman who had once stolen her husband's attention looked at her as though she were a ghost.
“Hello, Sophia.”
Sophia's face lost its color.
Vincent barely heard the guests whispering around them.
“Anna, you're alive.”
She looked at him without blinking.
“Apparently.”
His eyes dropped to the little boy.
“How old is he?”
Anna tightened her grip around the child's shoulder.
“That's none of your business.”
“Anna, please.”
“Don't say my name like you have any right to.”
The boy looked up at her.
“Mommy, who is that man?”
Vincent felt something twist inside his chest.
Anna crouched beside him.
“Someone we don't need to talk to.”
Vincent swallowed.
“What's his name?”
“Ethan.”
“How old?”
“Three.”
Three.
The number struck him harder than a bullet.
His gaze moved between the boy's face and Anna's.
The child had his dark hair, his stubborn eyebrows, and the tiny dimple that appeared on his left cheek whenever he frowned.
“Is he…”
Anna interrupted him.
“Don't.”
“I need to know.”
“You had your chance to know.”
Vincent stepped closer.
“Anna, is he my son?”
She stared at him for several seconds.
Then she answered quietly.
“He was your son before he ever took his first breath.”
Vincent's knees nearly gave way.
Sophia grabbed his arm.
“Vincent, we should leave. This is obviously some kind of sick trick.”
Anna laughed.
It wasn't a happy sound.
“A trick?”
Sophia lifted her chin.
“You disappeared. You were presumed dead.”
“I was inside the aircraft when it exploded.”
“You were supposed to be dead.”
The words escaped Sophia before she could stop them.
Anna's expression changed.
Vincent turned sharply.
“What did you just say?”
Sophia blinked.
“I meant everyone believed you were dead.”
Anna studied her.
Then she looked at Vincent.
“Interesting choice of words.”
Before either could respond, Ethan tugged her sleeve.
“Mommy, can we go home now?”
Anna kissed his hair.
“Of course, baby.”
Vincent stepped into her path.
“Please. Just give me five minutes.”
“No.”
“Anna, I buried you.”
“And I buried the woman I was before that plane exploded.”
His face crumpled.
“I never stopped loving you.”
She looked at him for a long moment.
“Then you should have come back.”
The silence between them was broken by a sudden commotion near the ballroom entrance.
Two men in black suits pushed through the crowd.
Vincent recognized them immediately.
His security chief, Marco Bellini, was supposed to be outside.
Instead, Marco looked pale.
“Boss,” he said urgently. “We have a problem.”
Vincent didn't look away from Anna.
“What?”
Marco leaned closer.
“Someone accessed the old aircraft investigation files. The same files your legal team sealed three years ago.”
Vincent's expression hardened.
“Who?”
Marco glanced toward Sophia.
Then back at his employer.
“Someone using Mrs. Moretti's original identity.”
Anna heard him.
Her fingers tightened around Ethan's hand.
Because she knew something Vincent didn't.
She had never been the one who accessed those files.
And whoever had done it was the reason she had come to Chicago that evening.
Before she could leave, her phone vibrated.
One message appeared.
HE KNOWS YOU'RE ALIVE. RUN BEFORE HE FINDS YOUR SON.
Anna looked toward the ballroom doors.
A man she recognized from the night of the explosion was standing there.
May you like
He was holding a photograph of Ethan.
And smiling.
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