PART 2: At 8 months pregnant, I was stripped of everything in divorce court.
H004
Nathaniel Cross did not raise his voice again.
He didn’t need to.
The rain hammered the courthouse plaza while Jonathan sat trapped inside his Mercedes, staring at the billionaire as if he had seen a ghost step out of hell wearing a tailored suit.
I clutched the wool coat around my shoulders, still shaking.
“Why are you helping me?”
Nathaniel’s eyes softened for the first time.
“Because I promised your mother I would.”
My breath caught.
“My mother is dead.”
“Yes,” he said quietly.
“And before she died, she made me swear that if anyone ever tried to destroy her daughter, I would come.”
Jonathan shoved his door open, slipping on the wet pavement as he stumbled out.
“This is insane.
Grace doesn’t have some billionaire guardian angel.”
Nathaniel turned slowly.
One of his guards handed him a slim leather folder.
He opened it and removed a single photograph, protected in plastic.
A younger version of my mother stood beside Nathaniel Cross in front of a hospital nursery window.
In her arms was a newborn baby.
Me.
My knees almost buckled.
“Your mother saved my life twenty-four years ago,” Nathaniel said.
“She gave up everything to keep you hidden from the people hunting our family.”
“Our family?” I whispered.
His gaze dropped to my belly.
Before he could answer, his phone rang.
The name flashing across the screen made even his guards stiffen.
Nathaniel answered without greeting.
A voice crackled through, low and distorted.
“You are too late, Cross.
The child belongs to us.”
The baby kicked violently inside me.
Pain sliced across my abdomen.
I gasped, grabbing Nathaniel’s arm.
Jonathan’s mistress suddenly screamed.
The emerald necklace around her throat was glowing—bright, unnatural green, pulsing like a heartbeat.
Nathaniel’s face went cold.
“That necklace,” he said, “was never jewelry.”
The clasp snapped open by itself.
The emerald fell into the mistress’s palm, split down the middle, and revealed a tiny black transmitter inside.
Then every SUV alarm began wailing at once.
Nathaniel pulled me behind him as red laser dots appeared across the courthouse steps.
And from the far end of the plaza, a fourth black vehicle rolled into view.
Its window lowered.
A woman with my mother’s face smiled at me.
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