Chapter 2 - TWO BIRTH CERTIFICATES
I stared at Emma while my man’s words repeated in my head.
Both certificates list you as the father.
Lily climbed off the bench.
“Daddy?”
I couldn’t answer.
Emma watched me carefully.
Children always knew when adults were lying.
They might not understand the lie.
But they felt it.
I crouched again.
“Emma, we’re going somewhere warm.”
“Am I in trouble?”
“No.”
“Is Aunt Karen in trouble?”
I looked toward the path.
“Yes.”
Emma immediately looked scared.
“Please don’t hurt her.”
That stopped me.
“Why?”
She hugged the teddy bear.
“She gets mean when she’s scared.”
A seven-year-old shouldn’t know that sentence.
I held out my hand.
“Come with me.”
Emma stared at it.
Lily took Emma’s free hand first.
“Now you have to.”
Emma looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because I’m holding the other one.”
For the first time, Emma almost smiled.
We drove to my townhouse in silence.
I had a doctor waiting before we arrived.
Emma was dehydrated.
Underweight.
Bruised along one shoulder.
And there was an old burn mark on her wrist.
The doctor looked at me carefully.
“Some of these injuries are not accidental.”
I felt something ugly move through me.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
Emma sat on the edge of the examination table.
Lily stayed beside her.
She refused to leave.
When the doctor finished, Lily whispered something into Emma’s ear.
Emma nodded.
Then they both looked at me.
“What?”
Lily folded her arms.
“She wants macaroni.”
Emma shook her head quickly.
“I said maybe.”
“You said yes.”
“I said I like it.”
“That’s basically yes.”
I ordered the kitchen to make macaroni.
Then I went downstairs.
Karen sat in my library with two guards behind her.
Her wrists weren’t tied.
They didn’t need to be.
She knew exactly where she was.
And who I was.
Her blond hair was damp from the mist outside.
Her mascara had streaked beneath both eyes.
She tried to look angry.
She only looked terrified.
I placed the two birth certificates on the table.
One said Lily Grace Blackwell.
The other said Emma Rose Blackwell.
Same birthday.
Same hospital.
Same mother.
Grace Callahan Blackwell.
Same father.
Marcus Anthony Blackwell.
I looked at Karen.
“Start talking.”
She stared at the papers.
“I was trying to protect her.”
“You left her alone in a park.”
“I knew you would be there.”
That answer hit me harder than expected.
“How?”
Karen swallowed.
“You take Lily there every Sunday.”
My voice dropped.
“You’ve been watching us?”
“For months.”
One of my guards shifted.
I didn’t move.
“Why didn’t you come to me?”
“Because Grace made me promise.”
My hand closed around the edge of the table.
“Grace is dead.”
Karen flinched.
“I know.”
“Then stop using her as an excuse.”
“She was terrified of you.”
That sentence changed the temperature in the room.
I leaned forward.
“Careful.”
Karen laughed bitterly.
“That right there.”
“What?”
“That face.”
She pointed at me.
“That voice.”
“She loved you, Marcus, but she was terrified of the world around you.”
I said nothing.
Karen took a breath.
“Grace found out she was carrying twins.”
“I was there when the doctor told her.”
“She cried for two days.”
“Not because she didn’t want them.”
“Because she knew what your enemies would do if they ever learned you had two daughters.”
My throat tightened.
“She never told me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because someone in your organization had already threatened her.”
I went still.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
I moved around the table.
Karen stepped back instinctively.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“She never told me his name.”
“She only said someone close to you knew about the twins.”
“And that if both babies stayed with you, one would eventually be used against the other.”
I remembered the year before Grace died.
The anxiety.
The phone calls she refused to explain.
The way she started checking windows twice.
I had thought it was pregnancy.
Then grief.
Then fear caused by my enemies.
I had never considered the danger might have been inside my own house.
“What happened the night they were born?”
Karen wiped her face.
“Grace delivered early.”
“You were away.”
I remembered.
Milwaukee.
A deal that became an ambush.
I had arrived at the hospital six hours after Lily’s birth.
Grace had been exhausted.
Lily had been sleeping beside her.
No one mentioned another child.
Karen continued.
“Grace told the doctor she wanted the second baby registered privately.”
“Anna took Emma.”
“Who is Anna?”
Karen’s eyes filled with tears.
“My sister.”
The woman from the funeral.
“Grace trusted her.”
“For seven years, Anna raised Emma like her own.”
“Why did she die?”
“Cancer.”
Emma had said three months ago.
I stared at Karen.
“And you took the child.”
“Yes.”
“To protect her?”
“Yes.”
“By starving her?”
Karen’s face changed.
“I didn’t starve her.”
“The doctor says otherwise.”
“I had no money.”
“You had a plane ticket to Canada.”
Silence.
I stepped closer.
“Who bought it?”
Karen looked away.
I knew the answer before she spoke.
“Someone called me.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
My patience disappeared.
“Karen.”
“They said they knew Emma was Marcus Blackwell’s daughter.”
Every muscle in my body tightened.
“They offered me two hundred thousand dollars if I brought her to Toronto.”
“And you agreed?”
Karen began crying.
“I was desperate.”
“You were going to sell my daughter.”
“No!”
“You were carrying her birth certificate and a plane ticket.”
“I didn’t know what they wanted with her!”
“That makes it worse.”
Karen’s mouth opened.
Then my phone vibrated.
A message from upstairs.
Lily’s nanny.
COME NOW.
I ran.
When I reached the second floor, Lily stood in the hallway.
Her face was white.
The bedroom door was open.
Emma was gone.
The window beside the fire escape stood wide open.
May you like
And on the glass, someone had written four words in red lipstick.
WE WANT THE OTHER TWIN.
