Chapter 7 - The Man I Fell in Love With Was Willing to Lose Everything to Make Sure I Could ChooseAdrien recovered.
Slowly.
The bullet had missed anything vital.
My mother stayed with us.
For the first time in years, I had a family.
Not the kind built on money.
The kind built on truth.
Adrien and I grew closer.
He never pressured me.
He never asked me to call him mine.
He simply stayed.
One evening, we sat on the balcony.
“Do you regret helping me?”
“No.”
“Even though you lost the trust?”
“No.”
“The money?”
“No.”
“Your empire?”
He smiled.
“I'm trying to lose that too.”
I stared.
“You mean it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I want Daniel to grow up without fear.”
I froze.
“Daniel?”
His son.
He was five.
Adrien had hidden him from the public.
A little boy with his mother's eyes.
I met him the next morning.
He looked at me.
“Are you Lena?”
“Yes.”
“Dad says you're brave.”
I smiled.
“Your dad says strange things.”
Daniel laughed.
He reached for my hand.
“Can you stay?”
I looked at Adrien.
“Yes.”
That changed our family.
I became part of their lives.
My mother became his mother figure.
Daniel became my joy.
We started planning a legitimate future.
Then the past returned.
Chloe contacted us.
She had evidence.
“Your father is moving money.”
“Where?”
“Offshore.”
“Why?”
“He wants to rebuild.”
“Who is helping him?”
She named three people.
One was a federal official.
Another was a judge.
The third—
my former doctor.
The doctor who had signed my mother's death certificate.
My stomach dropped.
“Then the death certificate was fake.”
“Yes.”
“Proof?”
Chloe handed us the file.
My mother's name.
Different body.
Different fingerprints.
A false autopsy.
Someone had paid the doctor.
The conspiracy went deeper than we knew.
My father had controlled the system.
Not just the criminal network.
The official one too.
Adrien looked at me.
“We end this.”
“How?”
“Publicly.”
We released the files.
Journalists investigated.
Federal agents opened cases.
The judge was arrested.
The doctor confessed.
The official resigned.
My father disappeared.
Again.
This time, he left a message.
You have won nothing.
The trust was only the beginning.
There was another account.
Hidden.
A final inheritance.
Not money.
A database.
A list of people who could be blackmailed.
The people whose secrets had protected the empire.
I looked at Adrien.
“We need it.”
“Yes.”
“And him.”
May you like
“Yes.”
The hunt continued.
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