Chapter 2 - Room 417The ride to St. Agnes took fourteen minutes.
Ethan counted every one of them.
Lucy sat in the passenger seat of his black Range Rover with both hands clenched around the envelope. His tuxedo jacket hung off her narrow shoulders. Her wet hair dripped onto the leather seat, but he could not bring himself to care.
The city blurred past in streaks of headlights and rain.
Ethan wanted to ask a hundred questions. Where had she grown up? What did Olivia tell her about him? Why tonight? Why a chapel? Why an envelope instead of a phone call years earlier?
But every time he looked at Lucy, he saw her mouth pressed tight, her chin trembling with the effort not to cry.
So he asked only one thing.
“Did you come alone?”
Lucy nodded.
“How?”
“Bus. Then I ran.”
His hands tightened around the wheel.
“In this storm?”
“She told me not to go.” Lucy looked down. “Mom. She said it was too late. But she kept saying your name when she was half-asleep. Ethan. Ethan. I asked the nurse what it meant and she said maybe there was someone I should call.”
Her fingers pressed deeper into the envelope.
“But Mom’s phone got disconnected. And your number wasn’t in her phone. So I looked through the box under her bed.”
“What box?”
“The one with all the checks. And pictures. And the newspaper clipping about your wedding.”
Ethan’s breathing changed.
Olivia had seen the announcement.
She had known he was marrying Victoria.
And while he was standing beneath white roses, she was dying in a hospital room across town.
They pulled up under the emergency entrance. Ethan barely remembered putting the car in park. He helped Lucy out, though she pushed his hand away at first out of habit, then seemed embarrassed and allowed him to guide her through the sliding doors.
The hospital smelled of antiseptic and old coffee.
Lucy moved fast, weaving through the hallway like she had learned the route by heart. Ethan followed, still in his wedding clothes, still wearing the boutonniere Victoria had pinned to his lapel that morning.
A nurse at the desk looked up. “Lucy, honey, where have you been? We were—”
“She’s here,” Lucy said. “And I brought him.”
The nurse’s gaze moved to Ethan.
Something like recognition crossed her face.
Not because she knew him.
Because Olivia had described him.
The thought nearly stopped him.
Room 417 was dim except for a monitor’s green glow. Rain tapped lightly against the window. A thin woman lay in the bed, her dark hair pulled back from a face made sharp by illness.
For a moment, Ethan saw only the sickness.
Then Olivia opened her eyes.
And he was twenty-eight again.
Standing beside a lake.
Listening to her laugh.
“Ethan,” she whispered.
His knees almost failed.
Lucy ran to the bed. “Mom, I got him. I told you I would.”
Olivia’s eyes filled with tears. “You shouldn’t have gone out in the rain.”
“You were wrong,” Lucy said, crying now. “It wasn’t too late.”
Ethan stepped closer, but slowly, as if the room were holy ground.
“Olivia.”
Her name came out broken.
She tried to lift her hand. He took it carefully. Her fingers were cold.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“No.” He shook his head. “Don’t. Don’t say that first.”
“I have to.”
“You told me the baby wasn’t mine.”
Olivia closed her eyes, and one tear slipped down her temple.
“She made me.”
The words landed softly, but the damage they carried was enormous.
Ethan leaned closer.
“Victoria?”
Olivia nodded.
“She came to my apartment after I left your office that day. I didn’t even know who she was. She had photos. Bank documents. Your father’s old debts. My mother’s medical bills. She knew everything.” Olivia paused, breath thin. “She said if I stayed, she would ruin you. She said your company would collapse before you ever got it off the ground. She said I would be blamed.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“She had papers. Legal papers. I didn’t understand all of it.” Olivia looked ashamed. “I was young. Scared. Pregnant. She told me you would hate me if you found out what she could expose.”
Ethan’s throat tightened.
“She paid you.”
“She called it help.” Olivia’s lips trembled. “I called it proof. I never cashed most of them at first. Then Lucy needed medicine. Rent. School. I hated every dollar.”
Lucy stared at the blanket.
“Mom saved them,” she said. “Every stub. Every note. Everything.”
Ethan looked at Olivia. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I tried.”
He froze.
“I wrote letters. I called your office. Twice I came to the building, but security said I was on a list.” Olivia swallowed. “A woman from Victoria’s family told me if I came near you again, Lucy would be taken from me.”
Lucy gripped the bedrail.
“I remember that lady,” she whispered. “The one with pearls.”
Ethan’s mind moved fast.
Victoria’s mother wore pearls every day.
Olivia struggled to breathe. A nurse came in, checked the monitor, and gave Ethan a warning look without saying the words.
Time was thin.
Olivia knew it too.
She turned her face toward Lucy.
“Baby, go get some water from the nurse, okay?”
Lucy shook her head. “No.”
“Please.”
Lucy looked between them, terrified to leave even for a second. Ethan touched her shoulder.
“I’ll stay right here.”
That promise seemed to matter. Lucy hesitated, then slipped out.
The door clicked shut.
Olivia’s fingers tightened around Ethan’s.
“There’s more.”
Ethan leaned in.
“She didn’t only pay me to disappear. She came back two months ago.”
His blood chilled.
“Victoria?”
Olivia nodded weakly.
“She knew I was sick. She knew about Lucy. She offered money again. A lot. But this time she wanted the checks back. The photos. Everything.”
“What did you say?”
“I said no.”
Olivia’s eyes sharpened with the last strength she had.
“That’s when my apartment was broken into.”
Ethan went still.
“What was taken?”
“Nothing obvious. But my old phone was gone. A folder of letters. Lucy’s birth certificate copy.”
The room seemed to darken.
Olivia whispered, “Ethan, she’s not just afraid of losing you.”
“Then what is she afraid of?”
Olivia looked toward the door, where Lucy had disappeared.
“She’s afraid Lucy can prove something else.”
“What?”
Olivia’s hand trembled as she reached under her pillow. Ethan helped her.
She pulled out a small brass key on a red thread.
“Storage unit. Harbor Lockers. Twelve B. Promise me you’ll go before she does.”
Ethan closed his hand around the key.
“What’s in there?”
Olivia’s eyes filled again.
“The reason Victoria chose you.”
Before Ethan could ask what she meant, Lucy came back with a paper cup of water.
Olivia smiled at her daughter.
Their daughter.
May you like
And Ethan understood, with a grief so deep it felt like drowning, that he had not lost nine years by accident.
Someone had stolen them.
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