Chapter 8 - The Night My Children Arrived Too Soon
I was thirty-one weeks pregnant.
Complications.
Sudden.
Terrifying.
Doctors rushed around me.
Adrien stood beside the bed.
His hand was shaking.
“Stay with me.”
“I am.”
“You're going to be okay.”
“You don't know that.”
“No.”
He squeezed my hand.
“But I'm going to believe it.”
The twins were delivered early.
Two tiny babies.
A boy.
A girl.
They were taken to neonatal care.
Adrien followed them until the doors closed.
Then he stood there.
Helpless.
It was the first time I had ever seen him without a plan.
I touched his arm.
“They're fighters.”
He nodded.
“They're Falcos.”
I smiled.
“No.”
He looked at me.
“They're ours.”
He laughed through tears.
The next six weeks were the hardest of our lives.
The babies remained in the neonatal unit.
We spent nights beside incubators.
Adrien read them stories.
Badly.
I laughed at him.
He didn't care.
He called the boy Leo.
I called the girl Elise.
He said they were perfect.
I agreed.
Outside the hospital, the old world continued collapsing.
But inside that room, none of it mattered.
One afternoon, Adrien held Leo's tiny hand.
“I'm sorry.”
I looked at him.
“For what?”
“For bringing this danger into your life.”
“You didn't.”
“I did.”
“No.”
I touched his shoulder.
“Your father did.”
He shook his head.
“I had choices.”
“Yes.”
“And I chose you.”
“That was one good choice.”
He smiled.
“And the other?”
“The twins.”
He looked at our children.
“Best decision I ever made.”
When the twins finally came home, the city was quiet.
No convoy.
No guards at the nursery door.
Just us.
Adrien held Elise.
I held Leo.
We stood beside the window.
For the first time, we weren't waiting for someone to attack.
We weren't hiding.
We weren't running.
We were simply a family.
Then someone knocked.
It was Daniel, the federal prosecutor who had helped dismantle the network.
He brought a package.
Inside was a letter.
From Vivienne.
She had been arrested.
But she claimed there was one final secret.
The person who had financed everything wasn't Adrian.
It wasn't Gabriel.
It wasn't even Adrien's father.
It was someone in Norah's own family.
I stared at the page.
“My family?”
Adrien looked at me.
“Who?”
I didn't know.
My mother was dead.
My father had died when I was eleven.
My brother lived in California.
My aunt was gone.
Nobody remained.
Except one person.
My cousin, Sarah.
She had been working at my old apartment building.
She had helped me move.
She had known about my pregnancy.
I felt sick.
Adrien immediately called security.
“She knew where you lived.”
“She knew my doctor.”
“She knew your work schedule.”
“She knew I planned to resign.”
Adrien looked at me.
“That's our leak.”
We searched Sarah's apartment.
It was empty.
But we found photographs.
Me.
Adrien.
The twins.
The protected residence.
The hospital.
Everything.
And one sentence:
May you like
I didn't want the babies.
I wanted what they unlock.
