16. Alexei #3
“Yes,” he says carefully. “And Isabella spent those years collecting information. Watching. Waiting. At first, she wanted legal avenues. Custody pressure. Investigators. Quiet influence. But you had too much security, too much money, and too many people loyal to you. Then Ivy began appearing at the shelter.”
Maggie.
I already know where this goes before he says it.
Enzo continues, his voice lower now. “Isabella believed Ivy was isolated enough to be reclaimed. Then Maggie Hayes became important.”
The table seems to disappear beneath my hands.
“She’s not part of this.”
Enzo looks at me with the expression of a man who knows the truth won’t save him, but he’ll say it anyway. “She is now.”
Roman’s focus moves to me. He says nothing, but I feel the warning in the silence.
Enzo presses on. “Ivy loves her. You love her. Maggie is pregnant with your child. Isabella sees that as a replacement. Clara replaced by Maggie. Ivy attached to Maggie. Your new baby becoming another claim that pulls Ivy deeper into your life.”
My control holds because it has to, but inside, something vicious rises. “How does Isabella know about the pregnancy?” I ask.
Enzo hesitates too long.
Roman steps closer. “Answer.”
“The planner,” Enzo says. “The apartment search. They found enough to suspect. A doctor appointment. A pregnancy test receipt. Notes. Isabella doesn’t need certainty before she acts. Suspicion is enough for her.”
Maggie’s stolen planner. The fear on her face in the apartment. Her hand going to her stomach before she looked away from me. All of it comes back with brutal clarity.
I should have pushed harder. I should have known. I should have erased every path leading to Maggie before anyone ever reached that apartment. I rise from my chair slowly, my gaze never leaving Enzo.
He flinches.
Roman’s voice cuts through the room before I can move closer. “Sit, Alexei.”
I don’t look at him. “Don’t give me orders.”
“I’m keeping him alive until he finishes talking.”
Enzo’s face drains of color.
I hold his stare before lowering myself back into the chair. “Continue.”
Enzo’s voice shakes now. “Isabella wants Ivy. She wants Maggie gone or broken enough to stop being an obstacle. And the baby...” He stops.
My hand closes around the edge of the table.
Roman’s face becomes even more still. “The baby what?”
Enzo swallows. “She blames you for Clara's death. In her mind, you took her daughter. Her heir.” He hesitates, visibly uneasy. “She intends to take yours.”
Rage burns through me, fierce enough to demand blood. Only years of discipline keep me in my chair.
Ivy. Maggie. The child Maggie carries. Isabella doesn’t see them as people. She sees ownership. Bloodlines. Legacy. Pieces on a board she believes still belong to her.
I lean forward, keeping my voice low. “Where is she?”
Enzo shakes his head. “I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I swear on my life, I don’t know where she is right now.”
“That’s not worth much.”
He nods quickly. “I know. But I have proof. Transfers. Messages. Names of intermediaries. The man who arranged the shelter fire. The broker who hired the team for the first attempt. I can give you enough to expose her network.”
Roman studies him. “Why betray her now?”
Enzo looks at my brother, then at me. “Because she’s going to kill me.”
Silence follows.
Enzo’s voice turns rougher. “I was useful when distance mattered. Now that you’re close, I’m evidence. She’ll erase me before you reach her. I want protection.”
Roman almost smiles. There is no warmth in it. “You came to the wrong family for mercy.”
“I didn’t ask for mercy.” Enzo’s eyes meet mine. “I asked to be useful.”
I look down at the documents spread across the table, then toward the main house visible through the far window. Somewhere beyond the trees, Maggie is likely in the kitchen with Ivy, arguing with Mrs. Bennett over toast and pretending today can still be ordinary before the rehearsal at three.
She doesn’t know that the woman hunting my daughter is Clara’s mother. She doesn’t know that the foundation tied to Clara’s chosen name helped fund the fire that nearly killed her and Jules. She doesn’t know that Isabella already knows about our child growing inside her.
The knowledge takes on a life of its own inside the room.
Roman steps beside me, his voice low enough that only I hear it. “You’re responsible for more lives than you were prepared for.”
I keep my attention on Enzo. “No.”
Roman waits.
“They were already mine,” I say.
The admission enters the room quietly, but it changes something in me all the same. Maggie is mine. Ivy is mine. The child Maggie carries is mine. No one gets to take them from me.
Roman inclines his head once, accepting the answer.
I look back at Enzo. “You’ll give Roman everything. Every account, every name, every route, every man who touched this.”
Enzo nods quickly. “Yes.”
“And if anything happens to Maggie, Ivy, or the baby because you held one detail back, Isabella will become the least of your concerns.”
He believes me.
He should.
My phone vibrates before he can respond. Luka glances down at his device near the door at the same time, then looks at me.
“Maggie and Ivy left for the shelter,” he says. “Mrs. Bennett reports that Ivy packed Winston a rehearsal snack bag even though he wasn't invited.”
The words don’t belong in this room, not beside Moretti, Enzo, fire, bloodlines, and abduction. Yet they do, because this is my life now. Violence on one hand. Family in the other.
I rise from the table.
Roman watches me carefully. “Tell her.”
“I will.”
“When?”
I slide the documents back toward him. “After I know how to keep them alive through the day.”
Roman’s eyes harden. “Waiting has already cost you once.”
The words hit exactly where he intends.
I meet his stare. “And telling Maggie minutes before Ivy’s rehearsal will only give her fear with no direction. I need facts. I need Isabella’s location. I need enough to act.”
Roman studies me long enough to make clear he disagrees but understands the calculation.
Finally, he nods toward Enzo. “Then I get facts.”
I turn for the door, already reaching for my phone to increase every layer of security around Maggie and Ivy.
Behind me, Enzo speaks again, his voice small now. “She won’t stop because you know. Knowing only makes her move faster,” he says.
I stop and look back at him.
“Then she should move quickly,” I respond. “It’ll make her easier to find.”
Ninety minutes later, after a dozen phone calls and twice as many orders, I finally leave the guest house. The drive to Second Chance Savannah takes twenty-three minutes. I spend every one of them replaying Enzo’s words in my mind.
By the time Luka turns onto the shelter's street, Roman has doubled security around the mansion, Sasha has begun tearing apart every financial record connected to the Moretti family, and three additional men are already en route to shadow Maggie.
It doesn’t feel like enough. Nothing feels like enough anymore.
The shelter comes into view beyond a chain-link fence wrapped in bright banners thanking the community for donations after the fire.
Construction vehicles line the parking lot.
Men in hard hats move in and out of the building carrying lumber, drywall, and electrical supplies while volunteers sort donations beneath a large temporary tent erected beside the shelter.
Even damaged, the place radiates life.
That’s Maggie.
She takes broken things and somehow convinces them to keep going.
Luka parks near the temporary office trailer.
“Additional teams are already in place,” he tells me as we exit the SUV. “Four outside. Two inside. One rotating.”
“Increase it to ten.”
Luka nods without argument.
The sound of barking greets us before we even reach the front entrance.
Construction noise echoes across the property.
Hammers strike wood. A circular saw whines somewhere toward the rear of the building.
Volunteers move purposefully through the organized disorder, many wearing Second Chance Savannah T-shirts covered in paint dust and dog hair.
I spot Maggie immediately. She stands near the temporary intake area wearing jeans, sneakers, and one of the shelter's faded volunteer shirts. Her hair hangs in a loose braid over one shoulder, and she gestures animatedly while speaking with a construction foreman nearly twice her size.
“...because if y'all put the cabinets there, nobody's gonna be able to open the dog food bins all the way,” she explains, pointing toward a set of blueprints spread across a folding table.
The foreman rubs the back of his neck.
“I hadn't thought about that.”
Maggie smiles triumphantly. “That's why you keep me around.”