Chapter 2 - THE SENTENCE UNDER THE BLANKET
Silas stared at Carolina’s trembling hand.
“You’re exhausted.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re shaking.”
“I’m holding a fifteen-day-old baby who wakes every ninety minutes.”
“Our baby.”
The correction came automatically.
Carolina’s eyes hardened.
“Biology doesn’t make these fifteen days yours retroactively.”
Silas flinched.
He deserved that.
Maybe.
He still wasn’t sure which part of this nightmare belonged to which one of them.
Gabriel began fussing against Carolina’s chest. His face scrunched, and a surprisingly determined cry came from such a small body.
Carolina immediately stood.
Too quickly.
The room tilted under her.
Silas saw it happen before she did.
Her knees weakened.
“Carolina.”
He crossed the distance in two strides.
“I’ve got him.”
“Don’t.”
“You’re going to fall.”
“I said—”
Her face suddenly lost color.
Silas did not ask again.
One arm went around Carolina’s waist while his other hand supported Gabriel beneath the blanket.
For one terrifying second, all three of them were tangled together.
Carolina against his chest.
Their son between them.
A version of their life Silas had once believed he had years to decide whether he wanted.
Then Carolina pushed away.
“I’m okay.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Stop managing me.”
“I’m trying to keep you conscious.”
Gabriel cried harder.
Carolina reached for him.
Silas hesitated.
It was ridiculous.
He had negotiated billion-dollar acquisitions without blinking, yet holding a newborn made his hands feel enormous and useless.
“Support his neck,” Carolina said automatically.
“I know that.”
“You’ve never held a newborn.”
“How do you know?”
“Have you?”
“No.”
“Then support his neck.”
Silas almost smiled.
Almost.
He carefully adjusted Gabriel.
The baby’s cry stopped.
Just stopped.
Gabriel blinked up at him.
Silas forgot how to breathe.
His son.
There was something almost violent about the realization.
Not possession.
Responsibility.
This tiny human being trusted whoever held him because he had no idea yet that adults were capable of failing one another.
Silas whispered, “Hello.”
Carolina looked away.
That hurt more than if she had thrown him out.
Gabriel’s small fist emerged from the blanket.
Wrapped around Silas’s finger.
Silas’s throat tightened.
“What does he like?”
Carolina sat slowly.
“Being held.”
“What else?”
“Milk. Sleeping on me instead of anywhere designed specifically for sleeping. Making me believe he’s finally asleep before opening his eyes the second I sit down.”
Silas looked at her.
“You’re doing this alone.”
“I have help.”
“Who?”
“My neighbor watches him when I shower.”
“That isn’t help. That’s survival.”
Carolina’s jaw tightened.
“My mother came the first week.”
“Why did she leave?”
“She has work.”
“And your sister?”
“In Seattle.”
“Why didn’t you hire someone?”
Her eyes flashed.
“Because not everyone solves exhaustion by placing another person on payroll.”
“You could afford a night nurse.”
“I know.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
Carolina stared at him.
“Because I spent eight months teaching myself that this child and I were enough.”
The anger left him.
Silas looked down at Gabriel.
Something pale blue protruded beneath the baby’s blanket.
Paper.
At first he assumed it was a hospital card.
Then Gabriel moved and the folded page slipped free.
It landed near Silas’s shoe.
Carolina saw it.
Her expression changed instantly.
“Leave that.”
Silas bent.
“Silas.”
He picked it up.
Heavy cream stationery.
His company’s embossed logo.
LOCKWOOD RENEWABLES.
His pulse slowed.
That was never a good sign.
He unfolded it.
There was only one sentence.
One sentence printed in black beneath his name.
If Carolina is pregnant, tell her I want no part of the child and no further contact with her.
Silas read it twice.
Then a third time.
The room seemed to lose sound.
“What is this?”
Carolina gave a hollow laugh.
“You tell me.”
“I didn’t write this.”
“Of course.”
“I didn’t.”
“You signed it.”
He looked at the bottom.
Silas Lockwood.
His signature.
Or something close enough that most people would never question it.
He would.
The S leaned slightly too far forward.
His real signature had not done that in years.
“Where did you get it?”
“Your office.”
“When?”
“Eight months ago.”
“From whom?”
“Your mother.”
Silas went completely still.
Carolina watched him.
“She came here three days after I discovered I was pregnant.”
“My mother knew?”
“Yes.”
“And you told her?”
“I called your office first.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“I did.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Seventeen times.”
Silas stared at her.
“That’s impossible.”
“I have phone records.”
“My number never showed your calls.”
“Then someone blocked them.”
His grip tightened around the page.
Carolina continued.
“I called your assistant. Your office. Your penthouse. Eventually Eleanor called me back.”
Silas’s face became expressionless.
That expression had frightened competitors for years.
Carolina once told him it meant he was angriest when he looked least angry.
“What did she say?”
“That you knew.”
Silas whispered, “I didn’t.”
“She said you didn’t want to speak to me.”
“I never said that.”
“She said you wanted everything handled through attorneys.”
“Our attorneys were handling the divorce.”
“And then she brought me that.”
Carolina pointed at the paper.
“I didn’t believe her at first.”
Silas looked up.
“You shouldn’t have.”
“Don’t.”
Her voice cracked.
“You don’t get to rewrite who you were because you’re standing here looking at your son.”
“I am not rewriting anything.”
“You told me children were an inconvenience.”
“I said the timing was wrong.”
“For four years.”
“Yes.”
“You asked for the divorce.”
“Because I thought you betrayed me.”
Carolina went still.
It was the first time either of them had approached the other wound.
The one that had ended the marriage before Gabriel existed between them.
Silas’s voice dropped.
“I found confidential Lockwood documents on Owen Mercer’s computer.”
Carolina stared.
“He was my gallery manager.”
“He was also consulting for Vantage Energy.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Emails came from your account.”
“I told you they weren’t mine.”
“And my legal team authenticated them.”
Carolina laughed bitterly.
“So you believed the lawyers.”
“I believed evidence.”
“You believed everyone except your wife.”
Silas had no answer.
She looked toward the note.
“And then I did the same thing.”
That silenced them both.
Gabriel slept between Silas’s arms, unaware that his parents were standing on opposite sides of a grave built partly from forged evidence and partly from their own failures.
Silas looked again at the sentence.
“If my mother gave you this, why keep it?”
Carolina’s eyes lowered.
“I almost threw it away.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because every time I thought about calling you, I read it.”
Silas felt sick.
She continued.
“Every time Gabriel kicked, I read it.”
His eyes closed.
“Carolina.”
“Every time I imagined telling you that we were having a boy, I read it.”
Her voice broke.
“And when I was in labor and the nurse asked whether someone should contact his father, I remembered that sentence.”
Silas looked down at his sleeping son.
That one piece of paper had stolen the pregnancy from him.
But someone had only been able to weaponize it because Silas had spent years making the lie believable.
That was the part he could not escape.
He carefully handed Gabriel back.
Then reached for his phone.
Carolina’s expression sharpened.
“What are you doing?”
“Finding out who created this.”
“Silas.”
He called his chief security officer.
“Mr. Lockwood?”
“Darius, I need a forensic team.”
Carolina stood.
“No.”
Silas looked at her.
“This is my home.”
“I know.”
“You don’t bring investigators into it.”
“I can analyze the document elsewhere.”
“No reporters. No company lawyers showing up. No men in suits terrifying my neighbors.”
“Agreed.”
“And you do not take Gabriel anywhere.”
Silas stared at her.
“I would never take him from you.”
“You once had an attorney ask whether my photography career constituted an unstable lifestyle.”
His stomach dropped.
“That was standard divorce strategy.”
“That was cruelty wearing a tie.”
Silas absorbed it.
Then nodded.
“You’re right.”
She seemed surprised.
“I’ll investigate without involving this apartment.”
Carolina tightened the blanket around Gabriel.
“And then?”
“Then I confront whoever did this.”
“What if it was your mother?”
His expression did not change.
“Especially if it was my mother.”
Carolina looked at him for a long time.
A knock sounded at the door.
Three sharp taps.
She frowned.
“I’m not expecting anyone.”
Silas instinctively stepped between Carolina and the entryway.
She almost objected.
Then the knock came again.
Silas opened the door.
A young man stood outside wearing a courier jacket and holding a white envelope.
“For Carolina Hayes.”
Silas took it.
“No signature?”
The courier shook his head and hurried down the stairs.
Carolina approached.
“What is it?”
Silas turned the envelope over.
No return address.
Inside was a photograph.
Carolina in a hospital bed.
Gabriel against her chest.
Taken through the maternity-room window.
On the back, someone had written four words.
He cannot know everything.
Silas stopped breathing.
Carolina went pale.
Because whoever had separated them eight months earlier was not finished.
May you like
And now that person knew exactly where their son slept.
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