Chapter 6 - The Man Who Had to Earn Us Back
By morning, my daughter’s existence had become public entertainment.
News vans gathered outside Blackwood Holdings.
Photographers appeared near my building.
Online gossip sites published old photographs from Ethan’s and my wedding.
Then pregnancy speculation.
Then divorce speculation.
Then the ugliest headline.
Mafia Heiress or Million-Dollar Lie?
I threw my phone onto the sofa.
Ethan arrived twenty minutes later.
I expected rage.
He was calm.
Too calm.
“Lily and I are leaving.”
“No.”
I stared.
“No?”
“You’re not running because Victor wants you frightened.”
“I’m not interested in proving anything to Victor.”
“Neither am I.”
“Then why are you here?”
“To give you options.”
That was new.
Old Ethan would have arrived with decisions.
New Ethan arrived with options.
He placed three folders on the kitchen table.
“One is temporary housing in a private residential building.”
I crossed my arms.
“One is increased security here, controlled by you.”
I said nothing.
“One is a hotel suite under a different name.”
“What do you want?”
“You safe.”
“Which option?”
“Whichever you choose.”
I hated how much that mattered.
“I stay here.”
He nodded.
“Then security stays outside the building. They don’t come up unless you ask.”
“Fine.”
“And Lily’s name?”
“Nothing public.”
“Agreed.”
The paternity accusation should have insulted Ethan.
Instead, it embarrassed me.
Not because I doubted anything.
Because strangers were discussing the most intimate truth of my life.
Victor filed a civil challenge related to the trust.
According to Daniel, his claim was weak.
He argued Ethan had manipulated family-control provisions.
He demanded confirmation that Lily was Ethan’s biological child.
“He wants DNA,” I said.
Daniel nodded.
“Do we have to?”
“Probably not. But refusing gives him publicity.”
I looked at Ethan.
He sat across from me.
No anger.
“Your choice.”
“Mine?”
“She’s your daughter too,” Daniel said.
Ethan shook his head.
“Claire carried her while I didn’t even know she existed. She decides.”
I looked at him.
Once, Ethan would have fought the request because pride demanded it.
Now he was giving me control.
“We do the test,” I said.
Not for Victor.
For Lily.
I wanted the question destroyed permanently.
The result arrived four days later.
99.999 percent probability.
Ethan looked at the paper.
Then at me.
“I never doubted.”
“I know.”
“I need you to know that.”
“I do.”
Victor’s claim collapsed publicly.
Privately, the damage continued.
Someone leaked my new address.
Someone photographed Ethan carrying Lily’s car seat.
Vanessa agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.
Then she requested to see me.
My first reaction was no.
My second was absolutely not.
My third surprised me.
“Yes.”
We met in a lawyer’s conference room.
Vanessa looked different.
No designer makeup.
No perfect hair.
No red lipstick.
She looked twenty-six.
Young.
Tired.
Scared.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
I stared.
“For which part?”
“All of it.”
“That’s convenient.”
“I know.”
“You wanted my husband.”
“Yes.”
“You lied to me.”
“Yes.”
“You lied to him.”
“Yes.”
“You helped Victor.”
Her eyes lowered.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“At first?”
She took a breath.
“Money.”
I appreciated the honesty.
“Later, Ethan.”
I almost laughed.
“You thought he would love you.”
“I thought if you disappeared, eventually.”
“Did he ever tell you he loved you?”
“No.”
“Kiss you?”
“No.”
“Sleep with you?”
“No.”
I needed to hear it.
Not because I planned to return to him.
Because my memories deserved truth.
“So all the photographs?”
“Staged.”
“The jacket?”
“I said I was cold.”
“The necklace?”
“I bought it with Victor’s money.”
“The anniversary?”
Her face crumpled slightly.
“I kissed his cheek.”
“And tried more.”
She looked surprised.
“He told you?”
“Yes.”
“He pushed me away.”
Something inside me loosened.
A knot I had carried for months.
Not forgiveness.
Truth.
“Why text me?”
“Victor wanted conflict.”
“And you enjoyed it.”
Her silence answered.
I stood.
“I hope cooperating helps you become someone better.”
She looked up.
“You don’t hate me?”
“I did.”
“And now?”
“I don’t want to spend enough energy on you to hate you.”
That hurt her more.
I left.
Ethan waited outside.
He did not ask what Vanessa said.
Again, new.
“You don’t want to know?”
“Only if you want to tell me.”
I studied him.
“What happened to you?”
He leaned against the wall.
“You left.”
Simple.
True.
The next few months became strange.
Ethan courted me.
Not dramatically.
No diamonds.
No helicopters.
No restaurants cleared for private dinners.
He learned quickly that expensive gestures made me suspicious.
Instead, he brought coffee.
He attended pediatric appointments.
He changed diapers badly, then better.
He learned Lily hated being swaddled too tightly.
He learned which bottle nipples she preferred.
He bought a ridiculous baby carrier and wore it around my apartment while answering business calls.
Maya took photographs.
For future blackmail.
One Saturday, he arrived in jeans and a gray sweater.
I stared.
“What?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you dressed like a normal person.”
“I own jeans.”
“You own exactly one pair.”
“Three.”
“Liar.”
He smiled.
We took Lily to Lincoln Park Conservatory early in the morning.
No photographers.
No business.
Just us.
For two hours, Ethan was not feared.
He was a father who spent fifteen minutes trying to make a four-month-old baby notice a flower.
“She’s looking at the ceiling,” I said.
“She likes architecture.”
“She’s drooling.”
“Advanced architecture.”
I laughed.
Then stopped.
Ethan looked at me.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You laughed.”
“I do that sometimes.”
“Not with me.”
His voice was quiet.
Guilt touched me.
Then I remembered guilt was not the same as responsibility.
“You’re doing well.”
He glanced at Lily.
“As a father?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
I knew what he wanted.
“Don’t push.”
He nodded.
“Okay.”
He had become very good at that word.
Victor remained a shadow.
His legal challenge failed.
His influence weakened as Ethan withdrew from criminal operations.
Several of Victor’s old allies abandoned him.
That should have reduced the threat.
Instead, it made him unpredictable.
One evening, Ethan came to my apartment with a bruise near his jaw.
I stared.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
I turned away.
“Claire.”
“You just failed.”
“What?”
“You said you were changing.”
“I am.”
“And the first time something happens, you say nothing.”
He touched his jaw.
“It was an argument.”
“With someone’s fist?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He hesitated.
I picked up Lily.
“Good night, Ethan.”
“Wait.”
“No.”
“I was meeting an old associate. He objected to me closing a business arrangement.”
“So he hit you.”
“I didn’t hit him back.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
“He threw one punch. Security removed him.”
“That’s supposed to impress me?”
“A little.”
Despite myself, I smiled.
His face softened.
Then he became serious.
“I’m trying.”
“I know.”
“It’s harder than I thought.”
“What is?”
“Becoming a man who solves problems without making people afraid.”
That was the most honest thing Ethan had said in years.
I sat across from him.
“My father taught me fear was efficient,” he continued.
“Was he like you?”
“Worse.”
“Did you love him?”
“Yes.”
“Were you afraid of him?”
Ethan looked down.
“Yes.”
There it was.
The origin of everything.
“I don’t want Lily afraid of me.”
“She won’t be.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you’re afraid of that happening.”
He smiled faintly.
For the first time, I touched his hand voluntarily.
Only briefly.
But Ethan looked at our fingers as if I had handed him the world.
That frightened me.
So I pulled away.
Two nights later, someone fired at Ethan’s car.
He was not inside.
His driver escaped unharmed.
A message was found beneath the windshield.
You can leave the family business.
The family business will not leave you.
Ethan did not tell me immediately.
His security chief did.
When I confronted him, rage shook me.
“You promised.”
“I didn’t want to frighten you.”
“You promised.”
“I know.”
“No more deciding what I can handle.”
“You’re right.”
“You say that too easily.”
“Because you are.”
I stared.
He looked exhausted.
“I was coming to tell you.”
“When?”
“Tonight.”
“After you decided what version I deserved?”
“No.”
Silence stretched.
Then he said, “I’m leaving Chicago.”
My anger disappeared.
“What?”
“Temporarily.”
“Why?”
“To end this.”
My stomach tightened.
“No.”
“It isn’t what you think.”
“That sentence has never led anywhere good.”
“I’m meeting federal investigators.”
I stared.
“You’re cooperating?”
“More than before.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I give them what I know about Victor.”
“That could destroy you.”
“Yes.”
“Your companies?”
“Some.”
“Your reputation?”
“Probably.”
“Your freedom?”
He paused.
“Possibly.”
I stood.
“No.”
He looked almost surprised.
“You wanted me out.”
“I wanted you out of that world. Not in prison.”
“I made choices, Claire.”
“So?”
“So if accountability costs me something, I pay it.”
That did not sound like Ethan Blackwood.
Or maybe it sounded like the man he always could have been.
I turned toward Lily’s crib.
“What happens to us?”
The word us slipped out.
He heard it.
I saw his eyes change.
But he did not seize the opening.
“I make sure Lily is protected financially no matter what.”
“I didn’t ask about money.”
He went still.
Neither did I.
We stared at each other.
Then I whispered, “Come back.”
His face changed.
“Claire.”
“Don’t make it into more than I said.”
“I won’t.”
“Just come back.”
“I’ll do everything I can.”
He kissed Lily’s forehead.
Then looked at me.
He did not touch me.
“Goodbye, Claire.”
“Not goodbye.”
He nodded.
“Not goodbye.”
Three days later, Ethan boarded a plane for Washington.
Two hours after takeoff, I received an anonymous message.
A photograph.
Ethan entering an airport terminal.
Underneath:
If he talks, you become a widow before the divorce papers have time to gather dust.
I stared at the screen.
Then at Lily.
May you like
And for the first time since Ethan asked me for a divorce, I realized I was no longer afraid of losing my marriage.
I was afraid of losing him.
