Chapter 8 - My Marriage Was Not an Accident
I met Derek at a coffee shop.
That was what I believed.
I spilled tea on his laptop bag.
He joked that it was the best excuse anyone had ever used to get his number.
Three dates later, he told me he had never felt that comfortable with anyone.
Six months later, we moved in together.
Two years later, we married.
I had called it fate.
The file called it surveillance.
Inside were photographs of me taken before Derek and I met.
Leaving work.
Shopping with my father.
Attending a friend’s wedding.
Running in a city park.
Someone had watched me for nine months.
Then came a typed memorandum.
SUBJECT: EMMA REED
MATERNAL CONNECTION: ELENA MORETTI
CONTACT STRATEGY: D. HOLLOWAY
My stomach turned.
Derek had been assigned to meet me.
Not randomly.
Not romantically.
Assigned.
My father sat across from me at Luka’s estate later that night.
He had a bruise along his cheek but no serious injuries.
I could barely look at him.
“You knew.”
He began crying.
“I suspected.”
“You let me marry him.”
“I didn’t know he was Victor’s instrument until later.”
“When?”
“After the wedding.”
“And you said nothing.”
“I was afraid.”
“For me?”
“For you.”
“For Elena.”
“For everyone.”
I laughed bitterly.
“You let me bury my own mother.”
He flinched.
“I thought she was safer dead.”
“To me?”
“To the world.”
“Did she know?”
“Not at first.”
He explained.
Elena survived the bridge crash with serious injuries.
Victor’s people searched the hospital.
My father moved her under a false identity.
She suffered memory problems for years.
By the time parts of her memory returned, Victor had built political and corporate connections.
My father believed revealing her would get us killed.
“So you raised me alone.”
“Yes.”
“And pretended she was dead.”
“Yes.”
“Did she ever ask for me?”
His face collapsed.
“Every day she remembered you.”
I stood.
I could not hear more.
Luka found me outside later.
The grounds were quiet.
Grace slept against my chest.
“I don’t know who I am anymore.”
“You’re Grace’s mother.”
“That’s all I know.”
“For now, it’s enough.”
I looked at him.
“My husband targeted me because of my mother.”
“Seems that way.”
“My fertility treatment used your DNA without my consent.”
“Yes.”
“My mother is alive.”
“Yes.”
“My father lied for most of my life.”
“Yes.”
“And your family has a trust that may turn my newborn into one of the richest children in America.”
Luka considered it.
“When you summarize it like that, it sounds bad.”
I laughed.
Really laughed.
For the first time since the hospital.
Then Grace made a tiny sound.
Luka immediately looked worried.
“She does that.”
“I know.”
“You looked alarmed.”
“I’m learning.”
I watched him.
He was intimidating to everyone else.
With Grace, he looked terrified of holding her too tightly.
Something softened inside me.
Not love.
Not yet.
Trust beginning in the smallest possible place.
Then Rosa came outside.
“Derek filed for emergency custody.”
The softness vanished.
“What?”
“He submitted a sworn affidavit claiming Emma is mentally unstable after childbirth.”
My blood went cold.
Rosa continued.
“He also submitted a paternity test.”
Luka’s jaw clenched.
“What does it say?”
“That Derek Holloway is Grace’s biological father.”
I stared at her.
“That’s impossible.”
“Maybe.”
Rosa held up the document.
“But tomorrow morning, a judge is going to see it.”
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At the bottom was the laboratory name.
Mercer Genetics.
