Chapter 4 - The House With Three Bedrooms
Ryan had security outside my home before sunset.
I hated every second of it.
Two black SUVs parked across from my Lincoln Park townhouse.
Four men rotated shifts.
Another monitored the alley.
Ryan wanted armed protection inside.
I drew the line there.
“My sons are not sleeping in a fortress.”
“They received a threat.”
“I received a threat.”
“Because of them.”
“Which means whoever sent it wants us scared.”
“I am scared.”
That stopped me.
Ryan Harrison did not admit fear easily.
He stood in my kitchen while the boys colored at the island.
His tie was gone.
His jacket was folded over a chair.
He looked less like a billionaire CEO and more like a man who hadn’t slept properly in twenty-four hours.
“I missed four years of their lives.”
He lowered his voice.
“I am not losing another day because I underestimated someone.”
My anger faded enough to let reason through.
“One team outside.”
“Two.”
“One.”
“Two, and nobody enters the house unless you approve.”
I rolled my eyes.
“You negotiate parenting like acquisitions.”
“I’m learning.”
“You’re exhausting.”
“I remember you saying that before we married.”
“I should have listened to myself.”
A small smile appeared.
It disappeared quickly.
Ethan looked up from his drawing.
“Ryan.”
Ryan turned immediately.
“Yes?”
“Come here.”
He walked over.
Ethan held up a picture.
Five stick figures stood beneath a yellow sun.
Three small children.
One woman.
One tall man.
Ryan stared at it.
“Who’s that?”
“You.”
His face changed.
Ethan pointed.
“That’s Mom.”
“I figured.”
“That’s me.”
“Okay.”
“That’s Noah.”
“Got it.”
“And Lucas.”
Ryan looked at the drawing again.
“What are we doing?”
“Going to the zoo.”
Ryan swallowed.
“We are?”
“If Mom says yes.”
Both of them looked at me.
I crossed my arms.
“Absolutely not tomorrow.”
Lucas groaned.
“Mom.”
“There are strangers sending messages.”
The boys did not know that part.
Ryan’s eyes widened slightly.
I corrected myself.
“There is too much going on.”
Ethan frowned.
“Saturday?”
Ryan looked hopeful.
It was absurd.
One of the richest men in America was waiting for permission from me and a preschooler to visit a zoo.
“Maybe.”
Ethan nodded.
“That means yes if we’re good.”
“It means maybe.”
Ryan leaned toward him.
“It means yes if we’re good.”
I pointed at him.
“Do not undermine me on day two.”
He almost smiled.
Later, after the boys were asleep, we sat in the living room.
Ryan looked around.
Family photographs covered the shelves.
The boys at six months.
Their first birthday.
Halloween costumes.
A beach trip.
Christmas pajamas.
Ryan moved from one image to another.
He stopped at a photograph of me holding all three newborns.
They were tiny.
Premature.
Wrapped in hospital blankets.
Ryan touched the frame.
“How early?”
“Thirty-two weeks.”
His head turned.
“That early?”
“Yes.”
“Were they okay?”
“Eventually.”
“What happened?”
“Lucas had trouble breathing.”
Ryan stared at me.
“For how long?”
“Ten days.”
“NICU?”
“Yes.”
“All of them?”
“Three weeks.”
He sat down slowly.
“Who was with you?”
“My sister came for the first week.”
“Then?”
“Mostly me.”
He closed his eyes.
“I was in Switzerland.”
I remembered.
His photograph had appeared in Forbes that week.
Ryan Harrison closes $2.1 billion European energy deal.
I had read it from a plastic chair beside Noah’s incubator.
“I remember.”
Ryan rubbed both hands over his face.
“Emily, I don’t know how to live with this.”
“You live forward.”
He looked at me.
“That sounds very healthy.”
“It took expensive therapy.”
He deserved that.
He almost smiled.
Then he looked toward the staircase.
“Can I see their rooms?”
I hesitated.
It felt strangely intimate.
More intimate than dinner.
More intimate than DNA results.
But I nodded.
Ethan’s room came first.
Bookshelves.
Model airplanes.
A solar-system mobile.
Ryan stared at a small trophy.
“What’s this?”
“Preschool science fair.”
“He won?”
“He built a wind turbine.”
Ryan looked at me.
“He’s four.”
“He had help.”
“From you?”
“Obviously.”
A hint of pride appeared on Ryan’s face.
He didn’t have the right to it yet.
But I let him keep it.
Noah’s room had firefighter posters and a wooden train set.
Lucas’s had dinosaurs covering almost every available surface.
Ryan smiled.
“Three completely different people.”
“Yes.”
“I thought triplets would be more alike.”
“They would be offended by that.”
He laughed softly.
We walked back downstairs.
My phone was waiting on the table.
One missed call.
Private number.
Then voicemail.
Ryan looked at the screen.
“Play it.”
I pressed speaker.
At first, there was only static.
Then a woman’s voice.
“Dr. Parker.”
I froze.
Ryan looked at me.
The speaker continued.
“You don’t know me, but I know what happened to your letters.”
My heart began pounding.
“If you want the truth, tell Ryan Harrison to stop looking for Anna Shaw.”
Ryan leaned closer.
The woman’s voice shook.
“She isn’t the person you should be afraid of.”
The message ended.
Ryan immediately called the number.
Unavailable.
He replayed the recording.
“Do you recognize the voice?”
“No.”
“Neither do I.”
He sent the audio to his security director.
“Can they trace it?”
“Maybe.”
I stared at the phone.
“Why protect Anna?”
“Maybe they’re not.”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe they’re redirecting us.”
Ryan began pacing.
“Richard knows we found Anna.”
“How?”
“I used company security resources.”
“Then stop.”
He looked at me.
“Use someone outside Harrison Green.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
The following morning, Ryan hired an independent investigator named Claire Donovan.
Former federal prosecutor.
No connection to the Harrison family.
By noon, she had uncovered something Ryan’s corporate team had missed.
Anna Shaw had not simply gone to work for Richard.
She had received $480,000 from a consulting company six weeks after our divorce.
The company had dissolved two months later.
Its registered owner was a shell corporation.
That corporation traced back to a trust.
The trust belonged to Richard Harrison.
Ryan stared at the report.
“There it is.”
“Payment doesn’t prove why.”
“It proves she was rewarded.”
“For something.”
He looked toward me.
“We need Anna.”
Claire found another detail.
Dr. Evan Cole had left his medical practice suddenly five years earlier.
No retirement announcement.
No patient transition statement.
No farewell.
He simply resigned.
Three weeks later, he moved to Florida.
With Anna.
That made no sense.
As far as I knew, they had never even met.
“They met through us,” Ryan said.
“How?”
“Someone brought them together.”
I stared at the timeline.
The day Ryan found the messages.
Two days later, Evan resigned.
Three days later, my board access disappeared.
One week later, Anna received my first certified pregnancy letter.
Eleven days later, I was served with divorce papers.
Six weeks later, Anna received nearly half a million dollars.
“This is too organized,” I whispered.
Ryan nodded.
“I know.”
I looked at him.
“You really didn’t know?”
He stared back.
There was hurt in his expression.
“No.”
I wanted to believe him.
I hated that part of me still hesitated.
Ryan saw it.
“I understand.”
“Understand what?”
“Why you don’t trust me.”
I looked away.
“I didn’t trust you either.”
“No.”
He stepped closer.
“And someone counted on that.”
That was the ugliest truth so far.
Whoever destroyed us had not created every crack.
They had simply known exactly where to push.
That afternoon, Ryan met the boys again.
This time I allowed two hours.
He brought no toys.
No gifts.
I noticed.
“So you listened.”
“To what?”
“No buying affection.”
He shrugged.
“I almost brought a train set.”
“Noah already has one.”
“I noticed.”
Instead, he sat on the floor and built dinosaurs with Lucas.
Then he helped Ethan fix a broken model airplane.
Noah eventually climbed onto the couch beside him.
“Are you really our dad?”
Ryan stopped.
“Yes.”
“Where were you?”
The room went still.
Ryan looked at me.
I didn’t rescue him.
He deserved to answer.
“I didn’t know you were here.”
Noah frowned.
“Mom knew.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t she tell you?”
Ryan swallowed.
“She tried.”
My chest tightened.
He continued.
“I didn’t get the message.”
Noah seemed satisfied with that.
Children sometimes accept truths adults spend years fighting.
“Are you staying now?”
Ryan’s eyes glistened.
“If your mom lets me be part of your lives, yes.”
All three boys looked at me.
“Traitor,” I muttered.
Ryan smiled.
That evening, after he left, I found Ethan sitting on the stairs.
“What are you doing?”
“Thinking.”
“About?”
“Dad.”
The word hit me again.
“He said Mom tried.”
“Yes.”
“So he’s not bad.”
“No.”
“Just dumb?”
I laughed before I could stop myself.
“Sometimes.”
Ethan nodded seriously.
“Okay.”
He disappeared upstairs.
My phone rang.
Claire Donovan.
I answered.
“Tell me you found something.”
“I found Anna.”
My heartbeat quickened.
“Where?”
“Florida.”
“Ryan already knew that.”
“No.”
Claire’s voice changed.
“I mean I spoke to her.”
I stood.
“What did she say?”
“She’s scared.”
“Of Richard?”
“She wouldn’t say.”
“Did she intercept the letters?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
My knees weakened.
“Why?”
“She says she was ordered to.”
“By Richard?”
Another pause.
“No.”
I gripped the phone.
“Then who?”
Claire hesitated.
“Emily, Anna says the person who ordered her to keep your pregnancy secret was someone Ryan would never question.”
My mouth went dry.
“Who?”
Claire answered quietly.
“His mother.”
Victoria Harrison had known.
May you like
She had known about her grandsons before they were born.
And she had chosen to keep them from her own son.
