I called my Head of Corporate Security, a former military intelligence officer named Vance. “Vance,” I said, my voice ice-cold. “I need a full tactical asset trace on Tessa Whitmore. Find every property she owns, every secret bank account, and find out where she goes when she thinks I’m working late. I want it done in two hours.”
While Vance worked, I drove back to the rural road where I had seen Maren.
The sun had set, casting long, eerie shadows across the Tennessee fields. I tracked the path she had taken until I saw a faint yellow light glowing from a small, dilapidated farmhouse hidden behind a grove of oak trees.
My luxury SUV felt completely out of place in the overgrown dirt driveway. I stepped out, my leather shoes sinking into the mud, and walked up the creaking wooden steps of the porch.
I knocked gently. The door opened, and Maren stood there. She looked smaller in the dim light of the doorway, holding a sleeping baby against her shoulder.
When she saw me, her expression didn’t change to fear or anger. It remained trapped in that devastating, quiet pity.
“Rowan,” she said softly. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Maren…” My voice broke, and for the first time in my life, the powerful CEO fell to his knees on a rotting wooden porch. “I know. I know everything. The investigator… Tessa… the setups. I know they’re my babies.”
Maren looked down at me, a single tear escaping her eye and landing on the pale blue cap of the infant she held.
“You’re a year too late, Rowan,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “I begged you to believe me. I sat on the floor of our home and cried until I couldn’t breathe, and you looked at me like I was garbage. You didn’t just throw me out. You threw them out.”
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“I am so sorry,” I choked out, the tears finally flowing freely down my face. “I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you. But Maren… the files. There was a third birth certificate. Where is our other child?”
