CHAPTER 10
Blood thundered in Nina’s temples. Heat washed over her—only to collapse into an icy chill a second later.
This couldn’t be real.
She clutched the kitten tighter. Its tiny body trembled in her hands, but Nina felt like she was coming apart.
She had to leave. Now. Before he saw her. Before their eyes met. Before the reality of it all hit her even harder.
Lynn and Jasper were busy with the dog. While both of them were distracted, Nina forced herself to take a step back. Then another one.
She rushed to the car, nearly tripping on the curb, yanked the door open, and slammed it shut. Her hands locked around the steering wheel, her fingers whitening from the tension.
She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Even trying to steady her breathing felt impossible.
Nina leaned forward, stared through the windshield—and saw him.
Jasper had hardly changed at all. Tall. Powerful.
A chilling icon of reckless self-assurance.
Dark-haired, with his hair slightly overgrown, as if he hadn’t had a cut in a month.
A fresh scar slashed across his face, the wound not fully healed yet.
A black T-shirt stretched across his shoulders, and he’d stepped outside without a jacket despite the cold. Black cargo pants. Heavy boots.
He looked exactly the same as he had back then. Like that night. Like the moment he destroyed her life.
No matter how hard she tried, Nina couldn’t look away. She couldn’t understand whether this was real or some kind of waking nightmare. He calmly grabbed the German shepherd by the collar, turned it around, and led it back toward the yard. The dog obeyed him instantly.
Lynn walked beside him. She was talking, laughing. She was happy. They looked like an ordinary father and daughter.
It was breaking Nina apart.
Her mind screamed with questions. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Was there even a chance that Leonard had been wrong and Lynn wasn’t her daughter? That was possible, right? Far more possible than the idea that her tormentor was raising the child she’d forsaken.
A wave of horror rolled through her body. She was shaking like a taut wire, every cell frozen with fear and shock, with the full understanding of what she had just seen.
Lynn lived with him.
Lynn called him Dad.
That man—the one she had spent her entire life trying to forget.
And yet he was here.
And he was with her daughter.
That cruel, brutal, amoral monster.
How could they have given her to him? What else didn’t she know? What the hell had happened twenty years ago? Did Frank know? Had her father known? Could they have delivered Lynn straight into his hands? How else could she have ended up with him?
Her head was spinning. There was no one left to ask. Her father was dead. And Frank… Frank must not know yet that she had found Lynn.
Jasper led the shepherd back into the house and closed the door behind them, sealing his perfect life behind high walls.
She should’ve driven away immediately. She never should’ve seen this. But she couldn’t even move. The shock was too strong.
Why, damn it, had she never once asked who exactly had adopted her daughter?
Why had she told Leonard not to send any personal details?
Just the address and the photo. If she’d known, she would’ve understood everything at once.
She could’ve prepared herself—if something like this could even be prepared for.
At the very least, she wouldn’t have been shattered this badly.
A few minutes later, they stepped back outside, and Nina found herself frozen, unable to tear her eyes away from them.
Jasper walked beside Lynn. They were clearly looking for something, peering into the bushes.
Nina sank deeper into the driver’s seat.
They were too close to her car. Her heart hammered so loudly in her chest she thought they might hear it.
Thank God the windows were tinted and they couldn’t see her.
But she could hear them.
“Dad, I swear I saw some woman standing with my cat,” Lynn’s voice trembled with anxiety.
Nina blinked several times.
Cat?
“You’re sure?” Jasper asked calmly, and at the sound of his voice cold, sticky sweat broke out on her skin.
“Yes! I can’t believe this. Even in a nice neighborhood you can run into people like that. How could she steal Mike?”
Nina jerked her head toward the passenger seat. Curled up there, fast asleep, was the kitten she had thought she had rescued.
It was Lynn’s cat.
She had stolen her own daughter’s cat.
The realization struck her like a blunt instrument. God, what kind of nightmare had she fallen into? What kind of cruel, ridiculous, unbearable absurdity.
But stepping out and handing him over was beyond her strength. She shouldn’t see Lynn. And she definitely shouldn’t see Jasper.
She watched them for a while longer, barely breathing. Lynn walked beside him, scanning the ground nervously, even checking under the parked cars. And Jasper… He was calm. Smiling. Saying something to her.
From the outside, they looked close. Like a father and daughter. Like a normal family. As if he loved her. As if he took care of her. As if he were truly a good father.
But Lynn didn’t know who he really was. She couldn’t even imagine what he was capable of.
Nina’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel as her palms went cold. Her heart pounded so hard she almost missed the moment when Lynn and Jasper finally moved past the car.
He seemed caring. Perfectly normal. But it was a lie, and Nina knew that better than anyone.
She stayed motionless, hardly daring to breathe, until they finally went back into the house and she could breathe again.
A few minutes later, the garage door opened and a black SUV pulled out. They drove away.
Nina grabbed her phone and texted Leonard:
“I need everything you can find on Lynn’s father. Everything. Affairs, illegal deals, anything. And check whether he’s ever had trouble with the law.”
She locked the phone and just sat there, staring blankly ahead, trying to process what was happening.
Then she looked again at the passenger seat. The kitten was still sleeping, curled into a tiny fluffy ball. Her gaze softened. It was strange. This tiny, helpless creature was the only fragile link between her and her daughter.
She brushed her fingers over his soft fur. He purred in his sleep. She couldn’t just leave him. She had to return him to where he belonged.
Nina stepped out of the car, carefully cradling Mike against her chest. She didn’t know what the right way to do this was. Just knock and hope someone answered? Not likely. Leaving him on the porch was insanity too.
She walked up to the house, thinking about trying to slip him under the garage gate. She set Mike down and whispered softly,
“Come on, little guy. Crawl under. That’s your home.”
The kitten blinked warily, sniffed her fingers, but didn’t move.
“Come on…” she nudged him.
And at that very moment the door to the side of the house swung open. Nina lifted her head and met Lynn’s eyes. Hadn’t she left with Jasper? Nina had thought they were both gone.
Lynn stood with her arms crossed over her chest, her gaze hostile and guarded.
“So your conscience finally kicked in and you decided to bring the cat back?” Lynn said. “Isn’t it low to steal someone’s pet?”
It took Nina several seconds just to understand what Lynn was saying.
God.
This was their first real meeting. Not in her imagination, not in nightmares, not in the painful fantasies of what her daughter might be like. She was here. Right in front of her. Real. Alive. And… she disliked her.
Nothing about this was how Nina had imagined it.
Her head spun.
Nina didn’t manage to say anything at first. Then she forced herself to stand, took a few steps toward the door, and held out the kitten. Lynn took him without hesitation, pressed him tightly to her chest, and stroked his soft fur.
Mike immediately began to purr, nosing into her neck.
“I’m sorry,” Nina finally said. Her voice broke, turned hoarse, but she forced herself to go on. “I found him right in the middle of the road. I thought someone had dumped him.”
Lynn still looked at her suspiciously.
Nina hurried on, afraid of the silence. “Then I saw you through the window… with…” The words stuck in her throat, but she forced herself to finish.
“With that man looking for something. And I realized he was yours. I didn’t know if anyone was home, so I decided this was the only way to bring him back. ”
Lynn said nothing. She only hugged Mike tighter, still studying Nina with mistrust.
Nina didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know how long she could keep herself together in front of this girl. In front of her child. In front of the person she was supposed to protect—but had abandoned.
She had to leave. Right now. Before she complicated everything even more.
Had she wanted to know whether Lynn was okay? Well, she was. More than okay. All that remained for Nina now was to turn away and keep living.