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CHAPTER NINE
publish date:
2026-09-18 16:25:31
Latest chapter
The Billionaire’s Hidden Heir CHAPTER TEN
EZRA’S POVI stare at the message until the words stop making sense as words and just become shapes on a screen.We need to discuss custody of the boy before this becomes a courtroom matter. — V.H.“Ezra,” Nadia shifts Miles higher against her shoulder, and even asleep, he makes a small sound of protest, the kind kids make when they’re moved without waking up all the way. “What is it. Tell me right now.”I turn the phone around so she can see it. I watched her read it once, then a second time, like the first pass didn’t fully land, and then I watched her face do something I hadn’t seen her do all night. Not fear. Something colder than fear.“He’s not even hiding what he wants anymore,” she says quietly. “He’s not pretending this is a welfare check. He’s telling us he’s coming for custody.”“He doesn’t have grounds for custody.”“He left a photograph of my son under my door at ten o’clock at night, Ezra. He tried my doorknob. Does that sound like a man who cares about grounds?”She’s r
The Billionaire’s Hidden Heir CHAPTER NINE
EZRA’S POVI’ve held that photograph for maybe ten seconds, and it already feels like it’s burned itself into the inside of my skull.Miles on a playground. Laughing. Some ordinary afternoon that should have belonged only to him and whoever was watching him at the time, and instead some man with a folder and careful handwriting was standing somewhere close enough to catch it on camera without either Nadia or the daycare or anyone else ever knowing he was there.“He is not safe.”Four words. No signature. No explanation. Just a threat dressed up as a warning, or a warning dressed up as a threat, and I honestly can’t tell which one scares me more.“Ezra.” Nadia’s voice cuts through the ringing in my ears. “Ezra, say something.”“We’re not staying here tonight,” I say.“What?”“You and Miles. You’re not staying in this apartment tonight.” I’m already moving, already thinking three steps ahead the way I think in every negotiation I’ve ever walked into, except my hands won’t stop shaking a
The Billionaire’s Hidden Heir CHAPTER EIGHT
NADIA'S POVThe phone slips out of my hand.That’s all it is. That’s the whole terrifying secret behind the silence Ezra must be hearing on his end right now. My palm goes slick with sweat the second I hear the doorknob turn, not open, just turn, someone testing it from the outside, checking if I forgot to lock it — and my fingers just stop working. The phone hits the carpet and slides under the little table by the door and I don’t even go for it. I stand frozen with my back pressed onto the wall and my whole body listening.The knob stops turning.I count. One, two, three. My heart is so loud I can feel it in my throat.Footsteps. Slow. Moving away from my door, down the hall, toward the stairwell. I hear the stairwell door open with that same tired creak it always has, the one Glenn keeps promising to fix and never does, and then it closes, and then there’s nothing. Just the hallway. Just the quiet.I haven’t moved for a long time.When I finally do, it’s because I hear a much small
The Billionaire’s Hidden Heir CHAPTER SEVEN
EZRA’S POVI’m three blocks from her building when my phone starts ringing.I almost don’t answer it. I’m driving with one hand and thinking about Miles with the other half of my brain, replaying the way he looked at me like I was just some tall stranger who wandered into his living room, and for a second the ringing phone feels like something I can deal with later. Then I glance down and see her name on the screen and something in my chest goes tight before I even pick up.“Nadia?”“There’s a man outside my door.” Her voice is fast and thin, like she’s trying to keep it steady and failing. “He knows my name. He says his name is Victor Hale, and he says he needs to talk to me and Ezra. He had a folder, he was looking at Miles’s window—”“Wait. Slow down. What did you say his name was?”“Victor Hale.”I feel the blood leave my face. I pull the car to the curb without even thinking about it, because I need both hands and I need to not be driving right now.“Nadia, listen to me. Do not o
The Billionaire’s Hidden Heir CHAPTER SIX
NADIA’S POVI stand there with the phone against my ear and I feel the floor tilt a little, like the whole apartment just shifted an inch to the left.“What do you mean he doesn’t work for Ezra?” I say. My voice comes out too fast, too high. “Dara, what are you talking about?”“His name is Victor Hale,” she says. “He used to work for Gerald Cole. Before Gerald died, Victor was the one who paid me. Handed me an envelope in a parking lot like it was nothing. And he never stopped calling me, Nadia. Even after the old man died. He calls me twice a year, just to check in. Just to ask how you’re doing. How is Miles doing?”My hand goes cold around the phone.“For two years?” I say. “You’re telling me some man has been asking about my son for two years, and you never once told me?”“I thought I was protecting you,” she says, and her voice cracks right down the middle. “I thought if I kept talking to him, kept him calm, he’d leave you alone. I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t have anyone
The Billionaire’s Hidden Heir CHAPTER FIVE
NADIA'S POV I play the voicemail on speaker.Dara's voice fills the hallway and I listen to my sister — my sister who brings Miles dinosaur crackers and reads him to sleep — threaten to sell my son's existence to a tabloid like it's a business decision. Her voice is steady. Practiced. Like she rehearsed it before she called.She says she knows Ezra came this morning. She says she has been watching this situation for five years, and she knows how it ends for people like her if people like Ezra get involved. She says she has contacts at two publications who have been interested in Ezra Cole's personal life since his company went public last year. And then she says the part that makes me want to sit down on the floor.She says Miles deserves stability. That she did what she did six years ago to protect me. That Gerald Cole would have destroyed my life, and she saw it before I did. And that if Ezra is back now, the same thing will happen, and she will do whatever she has to do to stop it
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