Chapter 2 - THE QUESTION HE COULDN’T ANSWER
“How?”
Hazel’s question floated through Griffin’s phone while he shoved his feet into shoes and grabbed his keys.
“How do you know my mom?”
Griffin stopped beside the elevator.
There were a thousand answers.
She was the girl who beat him in structural engineering freshman year.
The woman who slept with cold feet pressed against his legs.
The only person who had ever laughed when he told her he planned to build a billion-dollar company.
The woman he had almost married.
The woman who disappeared twice.
But an eight-year-old child was not the person who deserved that history at 2:47 in the morning.
“We were very close once.”
“Like friends?”
“Yes.”
That was technically true.
Hazel became quiet.
Behind her, Iris said, “Ask him.”
Griffin heard the whisper.
“Ask me what?”
Hazel swallowed.
“Are you our daddy?”
His hand froze over the elevator button.
The doors opened.
He didn’t move.
Eight.
Twins.
His mind began doing math he did not want to do.
Sloan had disappeared from Seattle ten years ago.
But she had not disappeared from his life completely.
Nine years earlier, one rainy November night in Portland, Griffin had found her again.
He had been attending an investor dinner.
She had been working for an architecture firm two blocks away.
They had seen each other through the window of a coffee shop.
One conversation became dinner.
Dinner became accusations.
Accusations became tears.
And before sunrise, they had ended up in the hotel room Griffin had sworn he would never ask her to enter.
The next morning Sloan vanished again.
No note.
No explanation.
Nothing.
Nine months later would have been—
Griffin pressed his palm against the elevator wall.
“Hazel.”
“Yes?”
“I don’t know.”
Iris’s voice came through the speaker.
“You sound scared.”
Griffin closed his eyes.
“I am.”
“Grown-ups get scared?”
“All the time.”
“Mom says they just hide it better.”
A broken laugh escaped him.
“That sounds like Sloan.”
Sirens became audible through Hazel’s phone.
“The ambulance!”
“Good. Unlock the door.”
“Iris already did.”
“Stay where the paramedics can see you.”
“Are you still coming?”
“Yes.”
“Even if you’re not our daddy?”
Griffin’s throat closed.
“Yes.”
He drove through Seattle rain like traffic laws were suggestions.
By the time he reached Sloan’s Fremont duplex, the ambulance was already pulling away.
A police officer stood with Hazel and Iris beneath the porch light.
Griffin got out.
Both girls looked at him.
And the world changed.
Hazel had Sloan’s dark curls.
Iris had Sloan’s narrow chin.
But Hazel’s eyes—
Gray-green.
His.
Iris tilted her head.
Griffin felt something almost physically strike him.
His mother used to do that.
Same angle.
Same suspicious narrowing of the eyes whenever someone said something she didn’t believe.
The officer approached.
“Mr. Drake?”
“Yes.”
“The girls said you were their mother’s emergency contact.”
“I am.”
“Relationship?”
Griffin looked at them.
Hazel looked right back.
“I’m an old friend.”
The officer clearly recognized him.
Most people did.
He glanced toward the black SUV stopping behind Griffin as security arrived.
“We need someone to accompany the children.”
“I’ll go.”
Hazel whispered, “He might be our dad.”
The officer’s eyebrows lifted.
Fantastic.
Griffin crouched.
“I’m going to take you to the hospital.”
“Is Mom dying?” Iris asked.
“No one has said that.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Griffin studied her.
“You’re Iris.”
“Yes.”
“You like exact answers.”
“Yes.”
“So do I.”
He softened his voice.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with your mom. But the ambulance got here quickly, she was breathing, and trained people are helping her. Those are good things.”
Iris nodded once.
Accepted.
Hazel reached for his hand without asking.
Griffin stared at her tiny fingers wrapped around his.
He nearly broke right there on Sloan’s front steps.
Instead, he took them to the hospital.
Three hours later, a neurologist explained Sloan had suffered a severe vascular migraine complicated by dangerously elevated blood pressure and dehydration.
No stroke.
No aneurysm.
No permanent neurological damage.
Griffin sat down for the first time.
Hazel climbed into the chair beside him.
“She’ll wake up?”
“Yes.”
“Promise?”
The doctor answered.
“We expect her to wake soon.”
Griffin looked toward the closed hospital-room door.
He had waited ten years to see Sloan again.
Now he was afraid of what would happen when she opened her eyes.
At 6:21 a.m., a nurse appeared.
“She’s awake.”
The twins ran inside.
Griffin stayed in the hallway.
He heard Hazel crying.
“Mom!”
Then Iris.
“You scared us!”
Then Sloan’s weak voice.
“Oh, babies.”
Griffin closed his eyes.
Babies.
His?
The nurse returned several minutes later.
“She asked for you.”
That surprised him.
He entered.
Sloan looked pale beneath the hospital lights.
Her dark hair was tangled around her face.
Eight years, ten years, nine years—it didn’t matter.
He knew her instantly.
Her eyes found him.
Every wall between them disappeared for one brutal second.
“Griffin.”
Hazel looked between them.
“You know him a lot.”
Sloan’s face changed.
“I do.”
Iris stood near the bed.
“Mom, we asked if he’s our dad.”
Sloan closed her eyes.
There it was.
The truth coming through children because adults had failed to deliver it.
“Girls,” Sloan whispered, “go with the nurse for a minute.”
“No.”
“Hazel.”
“We want to know.”
“You will.”
“When?”
Sloan looked at Griffin.
“Soon.”
Griffin said softly, “Let them go.”
Hazel stared at him.
Then at Sloan.
“If you lie, we’ll know.”
Sloan almost smiled.
“That is unfortunately true.”
The nurse took them away.
The door closed.
Griffin moved toward the bed.
“Are they mine?”
No greeting.
No accusation.
Just the question.
Sloan looked at him for a long time.
Then tears filled her eyes.
“Yes.”
Griffin’s breath left him.
He turned away.
“No.”
Sloan flinched.
“No, don’t—”
“You don’t get to cry first.”
His voice shook.
“I have eight-year-old daughters?”
“Yes.”
“I have twins?”
“Yes.”
“And you knew?”
“Yes.”
He laughed once.
It sounded broken.
“I missed everything.”
“I know.”
“Their birth.”
“I know.”
“First words.”
“I know.”
“First birthdays.”
“I know.”
“First day of school.”
“Griffin—”
“Eight Christmas mornings.”
The monitor beside Sloan accelerated.
He saw it.
Stopped.
Pressed both hands against his face.
When he looked at her again, his anger had changed.
It was grief now.
“Why?”
Sloan looked toward the door her daughters had disappeared through.
“Because after Portland, someone came to my apartment.”
“Who?”
“I never learned his name.”
“What did he want?”
“He knew about the hotel.”
Griffin went still.
“He knew I had spent the night with you?”
“Yes.”
“He knew before I knew I was pregnant.”
Something cold entered Griffin’s expression.
“What did he say?”
“He told me if I contacted you again, your company would collapse.”
Griffin almost scoffed.
Then Sloan continued.
“He showed me documents.”
“What documents?”
“Evidence that someone inside Drake Industries had been moving money through accounts in your name.”
“That’s impossible.”
“I thought so too.”
“Who?”
“I didn’t know then.”
“And now?”
Sloan looked straight at him.
“Your uncle.”
Griffin stopped breathing.
“Richard?”
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t explain why you hid my children.”
“No.”
She swallowed.
“This does.”
Sloan reached toward the small hospital bag a nurse had brought from the ambulance.
“My wallet.”
Griffin handed it to her.
She opened a hidden compartment and removed an old photograph.
A surveillance photograph.
Sloan leaving an obstetric clinic.
Pregnant.
Across the bottom, someone had written:
TWO HEARTBEATS. CONFIRMED.
Griffin stared.
“Who gave you this?”
“It arrived when I was fourteen weeks pregnant.”
He turned it over.
One sentence was written on the back.
GRIFFIN CAN LOSE A COMPANY, OR HE CAN LOSE THEM. YOU CHOOSE.
Griffin’s face became terrifyingly calm.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I believed them.”
“You believed I would choose the company?”
“No.”
Sloan’s voice broke.
“That was exactly what terrified me.”
She looked at him.
“I knew you’d choose us.”
And Griffin finally understood.
Whoever had threatened Sloan had known him well enough to understand that the easiest way to control him was not through money.
It was through people he loved.
His phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
One message.
A photograph.
Taken through the hospital window less than five minutes earlier.
Hazel and Iris stood beside the vending machine.
The caption contained six words.
SOME SECRETS SHOULD HAVE STAYED BURIED.
Griffin showed Sloan.
Every trace of color disappeared from her face.
The secret was out.
May you like
And whoever had frightened Sloan into silence eight years ago had just found their daughters again.
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