Chapter 3 - THE MAN WHO WASN'T SUPPOSED TO EXIST
Security locked the maternity corridor.
Adrian stood between Maren and the hallway.
I had never seen him like that.
His entire body was tense.
“Stay here,” he told me.
I laughed bitterly.
“After everything you've hidden, you think I'm going to stand somewhere because you tell me to?”
“Hannah, please.”
“No.”
A security officer approached.
“Mr. Cole, we have someone downstairs claiming to be the patient's father.”
Adrian's jaw tightened.
“He's not allowed near her.”
“Does he have a restraining order?”
Adrian hesitated.
“No.”
“Then we need documentation.”
“I'll handle it.”
The officer looked at me.
“Are you family?”
I almost laughed.
“I thought I was.”
Adrian closed his eyes.
The officer walked away.
Maren began crying.
“I never wanted this.”
I turned toward her.
“Then tell me everything.”
She looked at Adrian.
He nodded.
Maren took a breath.
“Graham was my biological father. He ran a private investment company.”
“What happened?”
“He was investigated for fraud.”
Adrian added:
“And money laundering.”
I stared at him.
“How did you get involved?”
“Graham discovered that Maren had evidence against him.”
“What evidence?”
Maren reached for her overnight bag.
She pulled out a tiny silver flash drive.
“This.”
“What is it?”
“Records.”
“Of what?”
“Payments.”
She looked at Adrian.
“Millions of dollars.”
I felt a chill.
“Whose payments?”
“People who paid Graham to make problems disappear.”
Adrian's voice was low.
“Judges. Executives. Contractors. Politicians.”
I stared at him.
“You're telling me my husband has been hiding a witness?”
“Yes.”
“For seven years?”
“Yes.”
“Using my identity?”
“Yes.”
I stepped away.
“You should have told me.”
“I couldn't.”
“You didn't trust me.”
“I was protecting you.”
“That excuse is getting old.”
Then Maren said something that changed the room.
“Adrian wasn't the one who chose your identity.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
“He was told to use it.”
“By whom?”
She looked toward Adrian.
He didn't answer.
Maren whispered:
“Your father.”
My heart stopped.
“My father?”
“You told me your father died when you were sixteen,” Maren said.
“He did.”
“No.”
I stared at her.
“You're wrong.”
Adrian looked at me.
“I’m sorry.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“What are you talking about?”
“Your father isn't dead.”
I couldn't speak.
I remembered the funeral.
The coffin.
The flowers.
The photographs.
The year I had spent grieving.
“You're lying.”
“No.”
“Then who was buried?”
Adrian's eyes filled with regret.
“Someone else.”
I felt sick.
Maren reached for my hand.
“I didn't know until recently.”
“How long has Adrian known?”
“Almost six years.”
I turned toward him.
“You knew my father was alive?”
“Yes.”
“And you married me anyway?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He couldn't answer.
Then a sound came from the hallway.
A man's voice.
Calm.
Controlled.
“Hannah?”
My entire body froze.
I knew that voice.
I had heard it in childhood.
The security doors opened.
A gray-haired man stood beyond them.
Older.
Thinner.
But unmistakable.
My father.
He looked directly at me.
And said:
“You need to leave this hospital before Graham finds you.”
I couldn't move.
Because the man I had mourned for eighteen years was standing ten feet away.
May you like
And he wasn't there to explain his disappearance.
He was there to warn me.
