Chapter 2 - The name Brin put where mine should have been
I had been threatened with guns more times than I could count.
Nothing had ever felt quite like hearing:
“You are not permitted near the baby.”
I stood at the nurses’ station with a hundred responses rising inside me.
Who signed that?
Who helped her?
Who told her she needed protection from me?
But I forced every question back down.
“Who is the emergency contact?”
The nurse shook her head.
“I can’t give you that.”
Of course she couldn’t.
And I hated that she was right.
Yara approached slowly.
“What exactly is happening?”
I turned.
Her face had gone hard.
“You knew her.”
“Yes.”
“How well?”
I said nothing.
That told her enough.
She looked toward the operating-room doors.
“She’s pregnant.”
“Yes.”
“And you think—”
“I don’t know.”
Yara laughed once without humor.
“You don’t know?”
Royce stepped between us slightly.
Not enough to threaten.
Enough to prevent the hallway from becoming a spectacle.
Yara lowered her voice.
“My father is going to hear about this.”
“That sounds like your problem.”
Her expression changed.
Six months earlier, I would never have spoken to Aurelio Salcedo’s daughter that way.
That morning, I suddenly did not care.
Then a hospital administrator appeared.
“Mr. Hale?”
“Yes.”
“We’ve confirmed Ms. Holloway has an advance privacy directive. You cannot receive medical information without authorization.”
“Is she alive?”
The administrator’s face softened.
“I can tell you the team is actively treating her.”
That was all.
No money could buy more.
So I sat down.
For forty minutes, I did nothing.
That may have been the most difficult thing I had done in years.
Then Royce’s phone vibrated.
He looked at me.
I shook my head.
“No business.”
“It’s not.”
He showed me the screen.
A name.
Martin Shaw.
My attorney.
Martin had represented me for eleven years.
If he was calling Royce rather than me, something was wrong.
I stepped away from Yara and answered.
“Talk.”
Martin sounded cautious.
“Cormack, did you just identify yourself as the father of Brin Holloway’s child?”
“How do you know?”
“Because someone filed an emergency trust notice forty-three minutes ago.”
My body went still.
“What trust?”
“A child-protection trust.”
“Who created it?”
“Brin.”
“When?”
“Seven months ago.”
Seven months.
She had known almost from the beginning.
“What does it say?”
Martin hesitated.
“That if the child is biologically yours, your personal assets may support the child—but you cannot exercise control over the trust, guardianship, residence, medical care, or education.”
I closed my eyes.
Brin had built a legal wall around our baby before I even knew the baby existed.
“Who controls it?”
“An independent attorney and one secondary protector.”
“Name.”
“Cormack—”
“Name.”
Martin sighed.
“Grace Holloway.”
I frowned.
“Her mother?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
“Her older sister.”
I had never heard Brin mention a sister.
Then Martin said:
“There’s something else.”
Of course there was.
“Grace filed supporting documents using records from one of your companies.”
“What records?”
“Security reports.”
My eyes opened.
“What kind of security reports?”
“Surveillance notes on Brin. Someone inside Hale Strategic had been tracking her pregnancy for months.”
For a moment, I heard nothing except hospital ventilation.
I had ordered everyone to stay away from Brin after I left her.
No contact.
No monitoring.
No intimidation.
Someone had disobeyed.
“How many months?”
“Almost eight.”
That meant someone knew she was pregnant before she had even created the trust.
Someone in my organization knew the child might be mine.
And never told me.
Then another message arrived.
From my operations director.
We need to discuss Salcedo. Immediately.
I looked across the lounge.
Yara was watching me.
May you like
And suddenly the timing of her hospital visit felt very different.
Cliffhanger: Someone inside Cormack’s empire had been monitoring Brin’s pregnancy for eight months—and the trail appeared to lead directly toward Yara’s powerful family.
