Chapter 1 - The Race to the Crib
The supermarket vanished in a blur of fluorescent lights and shouting voices. I didn't wait for the police to finish cuffing Marcus Vance. I sprinted toward the sliding glass doors, clutching Mia tightly to my chest, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
“Lily, wait!” Grandfather Winston’s voice boomed behind me. For a man in his late seventies, he moved with the terrifying speed of a seasoned predator. He caught my arm just as I hit the freezing asphalt of the parking lot. “You are not going in there alone. James!”
A sleek, black armored SUV screeched to a halt at the curb, driven by Winston’s head of security. We piled into the back.
“My apartment,” I gasped, giving James the address of the rundown complex on the edge of town. “Hurry. Please.”
The ride took six agonizing minutes. I kept my eyes glued to the tablet Grandfather had confiscated from Marcus. On the screen, the shadowy figure was still in my nursery, pulling things out of a duffel bag and placing them meticulously around Mia’s empty crib.
“What is he doing?” I whispered, trembling.
Grandfather leaned in, his jaw clenched so tightly the muscles jumped beneath his skin. “He’s planting evidence. Paraphernalia. Empty bottles. They are creating the crime scene to justify the forged mental incompetence document. If you had gone home with the baby, Beatrice would have called child services. They would have found this, and she would have taken Mia.”
Bile rose in my throat. Beatrice didn’t just want the money. She wanted to erase me completely and take my daughter.
James threw the SUV into park before we even fully stopped outside my building. Two of Grandfather’s armed security details were already out of the trailing vehicle, sprinting up the concrete stairs to my second-floor unit.
They kicked the door in. The splintering of cheap wood echoed through the courtyard.
By the time Grandfather and I walked through the doorway, the intruder was pinned facedown on the carpet, his hands zip-tied behind his back. I recognized him instantly—it was Beatrice’s personal driver, a massive brute named Cole. Scattered across Mia’s changing table were fake prescription pill bottles and drug paraphernalia.
May you like
“Clear it out,” Grandfather ordered his men, his voice absolute zero. “Bag everything he brought. I want his phone, his wallet, and his confession. If he refuses, remind him that the Sterling family has more influence than God in this city.”
I collapsed onto the rocking chair, pulling Mia close, burying my face in her soft hair. We were safe. But the war had just begun.
