Chapter Three

A Dangerous Past

The photograph trembled in my hands.

It wasn’t the pixel quality or the grain of old film—it was the undeniable truth in it. My estranged mother, Serena Hart, sat in Julian’s lap, his arms wrapped around her like a man completely in love—or obsessed.

And Julian… he looked younger, but his eyes held the same dangerous glint.

“You knew her?” I asked, breath barely escaping my lips. “My mother?”

Julian didn’t speak.

He walked over to the liquor cabinet, poured himself a drink, and downed it in one smooth motion.

“Julian,” I snapped, voice shaking. “Tell me the truth.”

He set the glass down gently, like the weight of what he was about to say required precision.

“I didn’t just know Serena.” His voice was raw. Unfiltered. “I loved her. Once.”

The words hit like a punch.

I stumbled back, nearly knocking over the file. “No. That’s not possible.”

He leaned against the mantle. “I was twenty-five. She was thirty. Beautiful. Enigmatic. She used to say things like, ‘Time bends for people like us.’ She made me feel like I was invincible. Until she disappeared.”

I shook my head violently. “She left me. She disappeared from my life, not yours.”

Julian’s eyes softened. “She didn’t vanish by accident, Camille.”

My breath caught. “What does that mean?”

“She left because someone wanted her gone.”

I stared at him, numb. “Who?”

He didn’t answer.

He just walked away—like silence would protect me better than the truth.

“You don’t get to do this,” I said, following him into the next room. “You don’t get to drop a bomb like that and walk away.”

Julian turned, and something unguarded flickered in his eyes.

“Your mother was involved in things she shouldn’t have been. Dangerous people. When she got pregnant, she tried to walk away from it all.”

The air vanished from my lungs.

“Pregnant?” My voice cracked. “Are you saying…”

He held up a hand. “No. Not mine.”

My knees nearly gave out with the relief—or the heartbreak. I didn’t even know which anymore.

“So you weren’t my…” I couldn’t say it.

Julian looked pained. “No. But for a while, I thought I might be. I was ready to raise you like my own.”

I sat down slowly on the edge of the velvet chaise, heart hammering in a way that had nothing to do with lust or rage.

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?”

He hesitated. “Because if you knew the whole story… you’d hate me more than you already do.”

My stomach twisted. “Try me.”

Julian didn’t answer.

Instead, he pulled out another envelope. A thinner one. Inside was a birth certificate with my name—Camille Serena Hart—and no father listed.

And behind that, a police report. Faded. Almost erased by time.

Missing Person: Serena Hart. Last seen… in Julian Thorne’s penthouse.

I stared at him, horrified.

“She disappeared… from here?”

Julian nodded once.

“They questioned me for days. Thought I killed her. I didn’t.” His jaw tensed. “But I never stopped looking.”

I backed away from him like he was a ghost.

“What are you hiding?” I whispered.

“Everything I did, I did to protect you.”

“No.” I shook my head, trembling. “You did it to protect yourself. That contract. That control. The way you watched me. You weren’t just obsessed—you were terrified.”

He didn’t argue.

And that silence… said everything.

I couldn’t breathe inside his walls anymore. I fled the penthouse, my thoughts unraveling as fast as my emotions.

Serena Hart had once been Julian’s lover.

And now her daughter was his mistress.

Sick. Twisted. Like I’d been caught in the gravitational pull of a star that had long since gone dark.

I needed answers.

Not just from Julian, but from someone who knew me outside his warped universe.

So I went to the only person I trusted: Tasha.

Her apartment was quiet when I arrived.

I knocked. No answer.

I rang. Still nothing.

I called her phone and heard it buzzing from inside. Odd.

My gut told me something was wrong.

I walked around the side of the building and found the alley behind her apartment.

That’s when I saw her.

Tasha.

Collapsed on the pavement. Bleeding.

“Oh my God—Tasha!” I rushed to her, heart in my throat. She was breathing, barely conscious.

Her eyes fluttered open as I touched her shoulder.

“Camille…” she croaked. “Don’t…”

“Don’t what? What happened?”

Her hand clutched a crumpled note. Blood had smeared across the paper.

I opened it with trembling fingers.

Scrawled in thick black ink:

STAY AWAY FROM JULIAN THORNE. OR YOU’RE NEXT.

Someone is targeting Camille’s inner circle—Julian’s past is darker than she ever imagined.