Chapter 1 - Twenty-Nine Weeks
Katherine screamed and grabbed the headboard.
“Don’t let him come in!”
Luciano Aruri appeared in the doorway carrying a leather case.
One cream-colored divorce document protruded through its brass clasp.
A drop of blood landed across the word HUSBAND.
Luciano suddenly understood that he had arrived to end one life while another might already be dying.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Then Margaret Hale, the sixty-one-year-old midwife standing beside the bed, pointed toward a stack of towels.
“Either make yourself useful or leave.”
Luciano had been ordered out of courtrooms, restaurants, warehouses, and once an entire country.
People rarely ordered him around twice.
He crossed the room and picked up the towels.
Kate stared at him.
Seven months had changed her.
Her dark hair clung damply to her cheeks. Her skin looked almost translucent beneath the warm bedroom lights. Pain had hollowed the softness from her face.
But none of that was what had stopped him.
Her stomach had.
Luciano looked down.
Then back at her.
“How far along?”
Kate closed her eyes.
Margaret answered.
“Twenty-nine weeks.”
The number landed harder than a bullet.
Luciano remembered dates.
April 3.
Their last argument.
April 4.
The morning Kate had left.
And April 3 had also been the night when anger had broken into grief, grief into desperate tenderness, and the distance between husband and wife had disappeared until sunrise.
Twenty-nine weeks.
His gaze returned to her stomach.
Kate saw the calculation happen.
“Luciano.”
“Is it mine?”
The room went silent.
A nurse glanced toward Margaret.
Kate swallowed.
Another contraction seized her before she could answer.
She cried out and curled around her belly.
Luciano moved instinctively.
Kate recoiled.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
That single word hurt more than he expected.
Margaret checked the bleeding.
“Mrs. Aruri, look at me.”
Kate obeyed.
“The bleeding has slowed. That’s good. But I need you calm.”
Luciano looked toward the window.
“Where is the ambulance?”
“County Road Nine is blocked.”
“Then use the east road.”
A nurse shook her head. “Flooded.”
“My helicopter.”
Margaret looked at him. “In this weather?”
Luciano already had his phone out.
No signal.
That was wrong.
Hawthorne Ridge had its own communications system.
Luciano stepped toward the hall.
Kate’s weak voice stopped him.
“You brought papers.”
He turned.
She was looking beyond him.
His leather case lay open near the door.
The divorce petition was visible.
Luciano had imagined handing it to her in the library.
He had imagined Kate reading it without emotion.
He had rehearsed what he would say.
We’ve hurt each other enough.
Sign it.
Be free.
Instead, she lay bleeding in the bed carrying what might be his child.
“Yes,” he said.
Kate nodded once.
There was something devastating about how calmly she did it.
“Of course you did.”
“Katherine—”
“Don't explain.”
“I didn’t know.”
“That was the point.”
Luciano’s expression hardened.
“You deliberately hid this from me?”
Fear flickered through her eyes.
Not guilt.
Fear.
He saw it now.
The same fear she had shown when he entered.
“You weren't afraid I would find out,” he said slowly. “You were afraid I would come here.”
Kate looked away.
“Why?”
She said nothing.
Luciano approached the bed.
“Kate.”
“Not now.”
“Twenty-nine weeks.”
“I know how pregnant I am.”
“You left the morning after—”
“I remember.”
“Then answer me.”
Margaret stepped between them.
“She doesn't owe you an argument while she’s bleeding.”
Luciano’s jaw tightened.
Kate whispered, “The baby is yours.”
Everything stopped.
Luciano stared at her.
For months he had trained himself not to think about his wife.
He had failed every day.
Now there was a child.
His child.
A son or daughter whose heartbeat had existed while he was signing documents designed to erase Kate from his future.
He sat slowly in the chair beside the bed.
“You knew?”
“Since May.”
His eyes snapped toward her.
“You knew for six months.”
“Yes.”
“And you never told me.”
Kate looked directly at him.
“Because someone else already knew.”
The anger disappeared from Luciano’s face.
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
“That makes no sense.”
“I received a photograph three days after the doctor confirmed the pregnancy.”
“What photograph?”
“Me leaving the clinic.”
Luciano went still.
Kate continued.
“There was a note.”
“What did it say?”
Her hand moved protectively across her belly.
“An Aruri heir belongs to the Aruris.”
Luciano’s face changed.
Kate saw the man beneath the tailored clothes disappear.
In his place stood the Luciano Aruri that powerful men feared.
“Where is the note?”
“I burned it.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew what you would do.”
“You should have called me.”
“And brought armed men around my unborn child?”
“To protect you.”
“You still don't understand.”
Luciano leaned closer.
“Then make me understand.”
Kate’s eyes filled.
“I left because your protection had become a prison. Every driver reported where I went. Every guard knew who I spoke to. Every restaurant table was checked before I sat down. Then I discovered I was pregnant, and someone proved they could watch me despite all of it.”
Luciano said nothing.
“So I disappeared,” she continued. “I used my grandmother’s name. I stopped using my regular doctors. I came here because Hawthorne Ridge wasn't connected to you.”
“It is now.”
“That’s exactly what I was afraid of.”
Luciano looked toward the nurses.
“Who knew she was here?”
Margaret answered. “Very few people.”
“Names.”
“Luciano,” Kate warned.
He ignored her.
Margaret’s expression sharpened.
“You don't command my staff.”
“I’m not trying to.”
“You have an interesting way of showing it.”
Before he could answer, a young housekeeper hurried inside.
“Mrs. Hale.”
Margaret turned.
“What?”
“The generator room.”
“What about it?”
“The backup communication line has been cut.”
Luciano rose.
“Cut?”
The housekeeper nodded.
“Clean through.”
Kate’s face drained.
Luciano crossed to the window.
Beyond the rain-darkened glass, the grounds disappeared into trees.
The blocked road.
The dead communications system.
The empty guard cottage.
None of it was coincidence.
He pulled a small handgun from beneath his coat.
Margaret stared at it.
“Not near my patient.”
Luciano put it away.
“Lock this door after I leave.”
Kate grabbed his wrist.
He looked down at her fingers.
It was the first time she had voluntarily touched him in seven months.
“Don't go.”
The words were barely audible.
Luciano looked at her.
Kate’s eyes had changed.
“This happened before.”
“What happened before?”
“The phone lines.”
“When?”
“Three nights ago.”
“Why didn't you leave?”
“Because I was told that if I tried—”
She stopped.
Luciano bent closer.
“If you tried what?”
A nurse interrupted from the doorway.
“Mr. Aruri?”
Luciano turned.
She held his leather case.
“I found something.”
“My papers?”
“No.”
She opened the case.
Beneath the divorce petition was a black envelope Luciano had never seen before.
His name was written across it.
LUCIANO.
He took it.
Inside was a photograph.
Kate sleeping in this very bed.
Taken the previous night.
Luciano flipped it over.
Five words were written on the back.
May you like
YOU BROUGHT HIM TO US.
Then someone knocked three times on the locked bedroom door.
