Chapter 4 - The Shattered Truth
The forest was dead silent save for the howling wind.
Adrian stumbled through the deep snow, his fine leather shoes soaked, his hands numb, his lungs burning with icy air. He didn't care about the black ledgers. He didn't care about the forty million dollars. He didn't care about Warren Pike, his shipping terminals, or the empire he had spent fifteen years building with blood and threats.
None of it mattered.
All he could see was Claire’s face from three hours ago—standing beneath the gold archway, her hand pressed against her belly, watching him put a diamond on another woman’s finger.
He had thought she was quiet because she was compliant. He had thought she was passive because she enjoyed the comfort he provided.
He had been a blind, arrogant fool.
"CLAIRE!" he screamed again, his voice cracking against the dark pines. "PLEASE! I'M ALONE! MILES IS GONE!"
Fifty yards away, behind the wide trunk of an ancient pine tree, a soft, ragged gasp cut through the sound of the wind.
Adrian ran toward the sound.
He rounded the tree and stopped dead in his tracks.
Claire was sitting in the snow, her back resting against the rough bark. Her face was deathly pale, her lips blue from the bitter cold. Her dark wool coat was pulled tight around her, her hands wrapped protectively around her massive pregnant belly. Sweat was beaded on her forehead despite the freezing temperature, and tears had frozen into icy tracks along her cheeks.
"Claire..." Adrian gasped, dropping heavily onto his knees in front of her.
He reached out to touch her, his shaking hands hovering over her shoulders, but she flinched away, her hazel eyes blazing with a fierce, burning hatred that made him pull his hands back as if he had been burned.
"Don't touch me," Claire whispered. Her voice was raspy, weak, but sharp enough to cut steel. "Don't you dare touch me, Adrian."
"Claire, you're freezing," Adrian pleaded, his own voice trembling violently as he stripped off his velvet jacket and tried to wrap it around her shoulders. "We have to get you inside. We have to get you to a hospital."
"No," she rasped, pushing his jacket away with all the strength she had left. "I'm not going anywhere with you. Ever again."
Adrian felt a sob catch in his throat—a sound he hadn't made since he was an eight-year-old boy. "Claire... I'm sorry. God, Claire, I'm so sorry. I didn't know about Miles... I didn't know what he was doing—"
"I don't care about Miles!" Claire cried out, her voice breaking into a ragged sob that shook her entire frame. "I don't care about your money! I don't care about your shipping terminals or your corporate war! You proposed to another woman in front of two hundred people on Christmas Eve while I was carrying your daughter!"
The words hung between them in the freezing air, heavy and absolute.
Adrian bowed his head, his forehead resting against the cold snow near her boots. The shame that washed over him was a physical weight, crushing his lungs, making it impossible to breathe.
"It was business..." Adrian choked out, the excuse sounding so pathetic, so utterly disgusting even to his own ears that he couldn't finish the sentence.
"Everything with you is business," Claire said, her tears flowing freely now, hot against her frozen skin. "You treated me like a piece of furniture in your mansion. You thought because you bought me diamonds and paid for expensive doctors that you owned my soul. But you don't. You never did."
She reached down, her body suddenly stiffening as a powerful, agonizing contraction racked her core. She gasped, her head falling back against the tree trunk, her knuckles turning white as she clutched her stomach.
Adrian snapped back to reality. "Claire! What's happening?!"
"The... the stress..." Claire gasped, her teeth chattering uncontrollably. "The baby... Adrian... the baby is coming..."
Adrian looked down. A dark stain was spreading across the snow beneath her coat. Her water had broken. She was in full labor, two months early, in the middle of a blizzard, miles from the nearest hospital.
Terror—pure, unadulterated terror—struck Adrian Cole like a lightning bolt.
"Hold on," Adrian whispered, his voice steadying with sudden, desperate resolve. "Hold on to me, Claire. I've got you. I swear to God on my life, I've got you."
He didn't ask for permission this time. He slid his strong arms beneath her knees and back, lifting her out of the deep snow. Claire was too weak to fight him, her head slumping against his chest as another violent contraction seized her body.
Adrian turned and sprinted through the snow toward his SUV, shouting for his men to clear the back seat and turn the heater to maximum.
"CALL A DOCTOR!" Adrian screamed at his men as he reached the vehicle. "GET THE BEST OBSTETRICIAN IN MASSACHUSETTS ON THE PHONE NOW! IF THIS CAR STOPS MOVING FOR A SECOND, I WILL KILL EVERY ONE OF YOU!"
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He slid into the back seat, pulling Claire tightly against his chest, wrapping her in heavy wool blankets from the trunk, rubbing her frozen hands as she screamed in agony.
For the first time in his life, the powerful mafia boss was completely powerless. All his money, all his guns, and all his influence could not stop the terror raging inside that black SUV as his wife fought for their daughter's life in the middle of a winter storm.
