5: 'LOLETTE.'

LOLETTE.

Twenty-four hours had passed and I was still clutching the letter.

The paper had gone soft at the edges where my fingers wouldn’t let go. I sat on the couch with my back ramrod straight, my eyes staring at nothing, while a police officer spoke to the director of my security company across the room.

Their voices came and went like sounds under water. Words drifted past me—“forensics,” “entry points,” “camera feeds,” “timeline”—but part of me wasn’t listening.

Part of me was gone with my boys.

My grandmother sat beside me with her hand on my shoulder. I felt its weight more than its warmth.

I was still shaking, still heartbroken. Every few seconds I had to remember to breathe.

When the officer finished and stepped out of the house, Fanny’s fingers tightened on my shoulders in a gentle squeeze. “Honey, try to eat something,” she said softly.

I didn’t answer.

I hadn’t said much since yesterday.

After I found the letter, my hands had dialed her without thinking, and she had arrived with the police trailing behind her. Since then she had moved like a man-made shield. Calling people, barking out instructions, making sure no one with a camera got within a mile of the house.

She was doing everything to keep this quiet, to keep the press from knowing.

Fashion Week was around the corner, and House of Rayne had been on every list, every blog, every mouth for weeks, and would be for months to come.

If news got out that my children had been kidnapped, it would be terrible. But it would get worse if the tabloids dug deeper and found out my sons were Adrian Emporio’s.

I didn’t want that kind of attention. I didn’t want them touched by that world.

I looked down at the letter and the words rose again, making coldness sink into my bones heavily.

If you want your children back, you’ll have to give me Adrian Emporio’s head.

Whoever took them knew. They knew my boys were his.

I didn’t know how.

I had cut off everything to do with him. No calls. No mentions. No pictures.

But once you saw my sons, it wasn’t hard to guess. The eyes. The face. The blond curls. They looked just like Adrian.

The thought of them gone broke something open inside me. My throat closed. The room blurred. I pressed the paper to my chest and started to cry.

Fanny slipped an arm around me, the kind of hold that usually put me back together. “I’m here,” she whispered. “I’m right here.”

“I… I need—” My voice fell apart. I wanted the noise to stop. I wanted the house to stop smelling like metal and fear. I wanted to be alone.

“I’m going to shower,” I said, though my voice was barely there.

She nodded, worry dark in her eyes, and let me go.

I carried the letter upstairs.

In my room I closed the door and slid down the wall till I hit the floor. The tears came hard and quiet. I pressed my forehead to my knees and wept until my chest ached.

Sooner or later the police were going to have to contact the Emporios to get to the bottom of this.

This felt like a hit against them. Against him.

But I knew those people.

They would look at me and see a stranger, a problem, a scandal. They didn’t even know my boys existed.

A sharp, ugly wave of regret cut through me.

I had kept them a secret to protect them. But if I hadn’t… would someone in that family be searching, too? Would there be more eyes on the ground? More power, more hands trying to get them back?

I unfolded the paper and read it again. Then again. My eyes kept snagging on the same line until desperation pushed the air out of me. I reached for my phone with shaking fingers and dialed.

“Alister,” I said when my assistant picked up, my voice hoarse, “book me the next flight to New York. The very next one. Text me the details.”

There was a beat. “Ms. Rayne… your schedule doesn’t––”

“Please,” I rasped. “Just do it.”

––*––

The car hummed beneath me as we drove through the heart of New York City.

I had flown through the night and landed with no sleep left in me.

Now a yellow cab carried me through streets I used to know.

“I wish you had thought this through a little more,” Fanny said gently through the receiver, “or let the police handle it. Or at least waited for some go-ahead.”

“I couldn’t wait,” I said. “Every minute feels like a day.”

“I know.” Her voice softened even more. “Are you sure you’ll be fine? Promise me you’ll call me if anything—anything at all—changes.”

“I’ll be fine,” I lied. “I promise I’ll call you. I’ll text you when I’m settled. I’ll call you after I see him.”

“Okay, sweetheart. I’m staying on top of everything here,” she said. “I’ll push the department, I’ll keep the press out. We’ll find your boys, sweetheart. We will.”

My eyes burned. “Thank you,” I whispered, and ended the call before I started crying again.

I turned my face to the window. The cab slowed. The street widened around a building I hadn’t seen in years. Emporio Dynasty Petrol.

My heart clenched so hard it hurt.

The massive skyscraper nearly grazed the skyline, the bold lettering of the company’s name stark and unmissable.

The cab stopped at the curb. I paid the driver with hands that didn’t feel like mine and stepped out into the city air. People moved around me, busying about the usual New York traffic.

I hated this city.

I tried hard to never come here, even for work.

The thought alone of bumping into Adrian or one of his family members was enough to make me blacklist the entire state.

I walked to the entrance and hesitated under the shadow of the massive enterprise.

For a breath, I was that small girl from five years ago, standing in shoes that didn’t fit and trying to look brave.

It had been years since I’d felt so small.

I pulled the door open and went in, keeping my eyes up and my breathing even and went straight to the reception desk. “I need to see the CEO,” I said, giving her my name.

“Do you have an appointment?” she asked.

I shook my head. My lip trembled and I made it stop.

She hesitated, then picked up the phone.

I stood there and listened to her talk into the receiver. When she said my name, something changed.

I felt it, a shift down the line I couldn’t hear.

She glanced at me and said into the phone, “Of course, sir. Right away.” Then she hung up and stood. “Please take the private elevator to the top floor,” she said, and gestured toward a set of doors tucked behind a banister separating it from the main elevator.

“Thank you,” I said, the word numb in my mouth.

I walked to the private elevator, pressed the call button, and stepped inside as soon as it opened. There was only one button on the panel. I pressed it, and the doors closed, sealing me into quiet.

Alone, I let my eyes fall shut.

I couldn’t fall apart here. Not yet.

I rubbed my arms as a chill settled into my bones, praying to God that he would understand why I kept him away. He needed to know I wasn’t back for his money, or his status.

I’d made something of myself, I was no longer... a nobody.

I’d always been proud of that.

Proud that I didn’t need him. That I wouldn’t need him for anything.

I squeezed the letter in my hand at the remembrance that he was very likely the only way I could get them back. My cheeks were wet as I prayed most of all—that he could help..

A soft chime, and then the doors began to slide apart.

I wiped at my face, pulled in a shaky breath, and lifted my head.

My breath caught like a fist had found my lungs. 

He stood there, framed by white lighting that brought every single one of his new features to the naked eye. Not the boy who had broken me, but the man he had become.

Sharper lines.

Broader shoulders.

For a moment I couldn’t breathe, locked in a trance with the same blue eyes I once upon a time had been obsessed with for years.

His full lips parted, so many different emotions tunneling over his face as he breathed, “Lolette.”

I forced air into my chest and pushed the words out brokenly, shaking with the intensity of being in his presence for the first time in so long, “I need your help, Adrian.”