Chapter 2 - The Crimson Raincoat
Maya tilted her head, her dark curls bouncing against the collar of her red plastic raincoat. She looked down at the paper napkin clutched in her hand, carefully smoothing out the creased edges against the pristine white tablecloth of table seven. “I care about space,” she said matter-of-factly, her gray eyes—strikingly clear and deeply familiar to Julian—staring straight into his. “And I care about my mommy. She works very hard at the hospital. Sometimes she doesn't sleep at all, but she always leaves a note under my pillow with a drawing of a star.”
Julian Blackthorne did not move a muscle. His hand remained wrapped around his glass of untouched mineral water, but inside, a seismic shift was occurring. He had spent his entire life reading people, dissecting their motives, and anticipating their betrayals. Yet, this five-year-old child possessed a presence that defied the heavy, dangerous atmosphere of Belladonna’s.
From the corner of his eye, Julian saw Marcus, his head of tactical security, step out of the kitchen corridor. Marcus gave a subtle, sharp shake of his head—the bomb threat was a hoax. A distraction. A coordinated feint designed to trigger a panicked evacuation of the restaurant, leaving Julian exposed on the street for a sniper or a targeted hit.
Julian’s eyes flicked to the street outside. Through the smoked glass and the heavy downpour of rain, he noticed a dark grey sedan idling illegally across the avenue. Two men sat inside, their eyes fixed on the entrance of Belladonna’s.
“Sir,” Marcus murmured, stepping up to the table, his hand hovering inches from his jacket zipper. “The perimeter is compromised. We need to move you out through the service tunnel now.”
Maya looked up at Marcus, her little eyebrows furrowing. “Is he a soldier?” she asked Julian, completely unfazed by the underlying danger. “He looks like the men in the movies who guard the king.”
Julian looked at Marcus, his gray eyes turning into chips of ice. “Change of plans, Marcus. Lock down the front doors. Pull the security gates. No one enters, and no one leaves. Bring the grey sedan’s plates to Sloane.”
Marcus hesitated for a fraction of a second, realizing Julian was choosing to stay inside the kill zone rather than drag this child out into whatever ambush was waiting on the street. “Yes, sir.”
Sloane Avery stood up from table nine, her heels clicking softly against the marble as she approached table seven. Her sharp, analytical gaze shifted from Julian to Maya, and then she froze. Up close, the resemblance was undeniable. The shape of the jaw, the serious tilt of the chin, the unusual, piercing gray color of the eyes.
“Julian,” Sloane whispered, her voice barely audible over the soft jazz playing through the restaurant’s speakers. “It can’t be.”
“Check the security feeds for the last ten minutes, Sloane,” Julian commanded, his voice deadly calm. “Find out who dropped her off outside. And do it before her mother arrives.”
Maya looked at Sloane, then back at Julian. “Your friend looks like she saw a ghost,” the little girl remarked, opening her purple backpack to pull out a green crayon. “My mommy says ghosts aren't real, though. They’re just sad memories people forget to put away.”
Julian felt a cold shiver strike the base of his spine. Sad memories people forget to put away. That sounded exactly like her. Seven years ago, Hannah Mercer had used those exact words to describe the brutal legacy of the Blackthorne family before she packed her bags and walked out of his life, refusing to let her soul be consumed by his darkness.
Suddenly, the front glass doors of Belladonna’s rattled violently. A woman was throwing her weight against the locked glass, her silhouette blurred by the driving rain outside. She was screaming something, her face pressed against the glass, frantic and terrified.
Julian looked up.
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Through the rain-streaked window, he saw her. The nursing school graduate who had vanished without a trace. The only woman who had ever looked past his wealth, past his criminal empire, and loved the broken man underneath.
Hannah Mercer had returned. And she was staring at the man sitting next to her daughter.
