All Chapters of BROKEN BILLIONAIRES: Chapter 41 - Chapter 49

49 Chapters

41: DEAD ENDS

ADRIAN.The wrong children.Two small blonde boys from Connecticut with a frightened mother and a baffled father who couldn't understand why half of JFK's law enforcement had descended on their vehicle.I stood there and watched Richard explain the situation to them and felt nothing. Just a hollow, spreading numbness that started somewhere in my chest and worked its way outward until I couldn't feel my hands.Lolette had stopped crying.That was almost worse than the crying.She stood a few feet away with her arms wrapped tight around herself, staring at something past the police tape, past the officers, past all of it. Her face had gone completely empty.I took a step toward her and she said "don't" so quietly I almost didn't hear it.So I didn't.I stood there instead with my hands at my sides and watched her hold herself together with nothing but sheer stubbornness while everything around us slowly dismantled. Officers filed back to their vehicles. The Connecticut family was apolog

42: HEY, DAD

ADRIAN.I didn't know how long I sat there.Time moved differently in this room. The monitors kept their rhythm. The oxygen machine breathed for him. And I sat in the chair that had molded itself to my shape over the past year and talked about nothing that mattered.I told him about the decoy at the airport. About Lolette falling apart in Sev's arms instead of mine. About the fact that whoever had my sons was always going to be three steps ahead because they understood something fundamental that I kept refusing to see.They knew exactly how desperate we were.And they were using it.My father's face didn't change. The monitors didn't skip. Nothing in the room acknowledged that I'd spoken at all.I stood up eventually because sitting there wasn't changing anything."I'll be back," I said.The same thing I always said.The same thing that never made any difference.I left the room and pulled the door shut behind me with that soft click that always sounded too final.Rai was waiting in t

44:

LOLETTE.The call came at seven in the morning.Adrian’s name on my phone screen. I’d been awake for hours already, staring at the hotel room ceiling and trying not to think about the airport. About the wrong children. About the fact that we were no closer to finding Ruslan and Ivan than we’d been a week ago.I answered.“There’s a meeting at my office at nine,” Adrian said without preamble. “Richard has updates. The FBI wants to brief us on some new leads. I’m sending a car to pick you up in forty minutes.”“Okay.”A pause on his end. Like he’d been expecting me to argue or ask questions or do anything other than just agree.“Okay,” he said finally. “I’ll see you there.”He hung up.I got out of bed and started getting ready.The car arrived exactly forty minutes later.Marcus was driving again. He nodded at me in the rearview mirror when I climbed into the back seat but didn’t try to make conversation. I was grateful for that. My head felt too full and too empty at the same time for

44

ADRIAN.Nobody in the room moved.The voice on the phone filled the silence with that particular quality of calm that only came from someone who had rehearsed this moment. Who had planned it. Who knew exactly what it felt like to have a room full of people go completely still at the sound of it.I’d heard that kind of calm before. Usually right before something irreversible happened.Richard was already signaling to one of the FBI agents. The agent pulled out his own phone and started typing.“What do you want me to reveal?” I asked.“Your father’s condition.” The voice didn’t hesitate. “Full disclosure. Press conference. On camera. You tell the world that Alexei Emporio has been in a vegetative state for the past fourteen months and that you’ve been running the company and hiding it from shareholders, from the board, from the public.”“That’s not—”“I’m not finished.” The pleasantness drained out completely now. “You also disclose the terms of the Eastwood deal. What Theodore wanted.

45

LOLETTE.I stood at that window and felt the world rearrange itself around me.Five years.Five years I’d believed he’d chosen Mabel over me. That I hadn’t been enough. That whatever we’d had together meant less to him than what the Ashfords could offer.Five years of building a life around that wound.And it had been a lie.Not the rejection. That part had been real enough. But the reason behind it. The choice that I’d thought he’d made. All of it was something else entirely.Theodore had done this.My father had stood between us and demanded that Adrian destroy me. Had made it the price for saving his own father’s life.I pressed my hand flat against the glass.The protesters below kept chanting. The cameras kept filming. The reporters kept talking into their microphones about scandals and secrets and Emporio family conspiracies.None of them knew.None of them had any idea what was actually happening inside this building.“Lolette.” Adrian’s voice came from somewhere behind me.I d

46

ADRIAN.The statement took six hours to write.Sasha drafted it. I revised it. Sasha revised my revisions. We went back and forth until the words stopped meaning anything and just became sounds strung together in an order that might keep us from getting sued into oblivion.Lolette sat in the corner of the conference room with Richard and went over security protocols for after the press conference went live. Escape routes. Safe houses. How to handle the reporters that would inevitably camp outside her hotel.The FBI agents came and went. Each time they returned, they had less useful information than before.No leads on Damien’s location. No trace on where the call had originated beyond the stolen phone. No security footage from any of the airports or train stations showing two blonde boys matching the twins’ description.Nothing.By four in the afternoon, my eyes burned from staring at the same document for too long.By six, the protesters outside had doubled in size.By eight, Sasha l

47

LOLETTE.The Montauk estate sat on twelve acres of private coastline that felt like the edge of the world.We arrived just after midnight. The house rose up against the dark sky, all clean lines and enormous windows that would show the ocean when the sun came up. Security lights flicked on as we pulled through the gates. I could see two men stationed near the entrance. More than that probably hidden in places I couldn't see.Marcus stopped the car in the circular driveway.Sev was waiting at the front door.He came down the steps as we got out. His eyes went to Adrian first, then to me. Something passed between the brothers that I couldn't read. Some silent communication that happened too fast for me to catch."Everything's ready," Sev said. "Security is set. No one gets within half a mile of this place without us knowing about it.""Good." Adrian's voice was flat. Exhausted. "Where are we sleeping?""East wing. Second floor. I put you in adjoining rooms." Sev looked at me. "Your thin

48

LOLETTE.I set the phone down.My hands were shaking again.I'd known the statement was coming. Had sat in the room while it was being written. Had heard Adrian and Sasha argue about every word.But seeing it written out like this made it real in a way it hadn't been before.Tomorrow this would be public.Tomorrow everyone would know.I got up and walked to the window. The ocean stretched out black and endless under the moonless sky. I couldn't see where it ended and where the sky began. Just darkness layered on darkness with nothing to separate them.My phone buzzed on the bed behind me.I turned and looked at the screen.A text from an unknown number.My heart stopped.I grabbed the phone and opened the message.Unknown: Your sons are safe. For now. Make sure Adrian keeps his word tomorrow. If he doesn't, you'll never see them again.A photo loaded below the text.Ruslan and Ivan asleep on a bed. They were wearing pajamas I didn't recognize. The room behind them was dark but I could

49

ADRIAN.I woke up to sunlight streaming through windows I didn't recognize.For half a second I couldn't remember where I was. Then it came back. Montauk. The estate. The press conference in two hours that would destroy everything.Lolette was still asleep beside me.We were both fully clothed on top of the covers. Her hand was still in mine the way it had been when we'd finally stopped talking and let exhaustion pull us under. Her face was pressed into the pillow and her breathing was slow and even.I extracted my hand carefully and sat up.My phone was on the nightstand. I picked it up and checked the time. Ten-oh-seven. The alarm had been going off for seven minutes and neither of us had stirred.Thirty-six new messages waited for me.I scrolled through them. Sasha confirming final logistics. Richard with an update from the FBI that amounted to nothing new. Sev asking if I was awake yet.And one from an unknown number that had come in at six this morning.I opened it.Unknown: Two

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