All Chapters of The Outlaw Secret Heiress: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

POV: ANASTASIAThe words on the note refused to change.YOUR FATHER IS STILL ALIVE.I sat on the edge of the bed, holding the paper between trembling fingers while the room seemed to grow smaller around me.Alive.The word was almost impossible to understand. For twenty-seven years, I had believed my father was either dead or simply someone who had never wanted me. My mother had never spoken his name. Whenever I asked as a child, Clara would find some gentle way to change the subject, and eventually I stopped asking.Then she died and I thought that was the end of it. Now, after everything that had happened over the past few days, I was beginning to understand that my mother hadn’t simply kept a secret. She had built my entire life around one. I folded the note in half and stood.There was only one person I wanted answers from. I crossed the hallway and stopped outside Jaxon’s door. Light spilled beneath it.I knocked once before opening it. Jaxon was standing beside his desk, his phon

ANASTASIA POVSomeone had been looking for me long before I ever knew there was anything to find.I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Rafe’s discovery had followed me through breakfast, through the guarded hallways of the compound, and into the secure room where the contents of my mother’s box still covered the table. Twenty years.Someone had searched confidential records connected to me for nearly twenty years. That meant this hadn’t started when my mother died or It hadn’t started when the men broke into my apartment. It started while I was still a child. I stared at the photographs spread across the table.For years, I’d believed my childhood had been painfully ordinary. It had been my mother, our small home, school, birthdays, scraped knees and the quiet routines that made up our life. But perhaps it had only looked ordinary because Clara had worked very hard to make it that way. I picked up one of the photographs. My mother stood outside a building in London, younger than I reme

POV: JAXONThe next shot shattered the garage window. Glass exploded across the floor. I grabbed Anastasia around the waist and dragged her behind the concrete support column as another burst of gunfire tore through the doorway.“Stay down.”I ordered She dropped beside me, breathing hard. Outside, the compound had erupted into chaos. Men were shouting. Engines roared to life. Boots pounded across the concrete as the Black Vipers scrambled into position.Rafe’s voice came through my earpiece. “Jaxon, they’re inside the east perimeter!”I pulled the magazine from my weapon and checked it before looking at Anastasia.“Do exactly what I tell you.”Her eyes met mine, wide and dark against the shadows “Where are you going?”“To stop them.”“Jaxon….”I caught her face between my hands for half a second. “Stay here.”The fear in her eyes almost made me stay. Almost. Then another gunshot cracked through the night. I released her and moved. The moment I stepped out of the garage, one of my men

POV: ANASTASIAI could still see his face.Even with my eyes closed, it burned behind my eyelids. The man who had forced his way into my room, who had tried to drag me into the shadows while gunfire shook the compound, who had spoken my name like he had known it his whole life.I wrapped my arms around myself as Jaxon stood in front of me, his tall frame blocking out the cold gloom of the service passage.“Who was he?” Jaxon asked. His voice was controlled, but I could see the tension in his jaw. I looked at him.“I’ve seen him before.”“Where?”“Here. In the compound.”Jaxon went completely still.I forced myself to think. The man’s face had been partly covered when he entered my room, but when I fought him, the fabric had slipped. I saw him clearly.Dark hair. A narrow scar near his eyebrow. The same watch he worn the day I arrived at the compound.“I don’t know his name.”“Describe him.”I gave him every detail I could remember. Jaxon listened without interrupting, his eyes dark and

POV: ANASTASIAThe word DNA stayed in my head long after Rafe left the room.It sounded simple. Almost harmless. A test. A sample. A laboratory report. But somehow, that small test had the power to rearrange everything I thought I knew about myself. I stared at the folder Rafe had left on the table.For twenty-seven years, I had been Anastasia Grace. Clara’s daughter. A kindergarten teacher. A woman with an ordinary life and ordinary problems. Now everyone was looking at me as if I might be something else entirely. An heir. A Devereaux. Someone important enough for armed men to break into my home and risk attacking a heavily guarded compound.I hated it.“I’ll do it.”Jaxon looked at me. “You don’t have to decide tonight.”“I’ve already decided.” My voice sounded steadier than I felt. I picked up the folder and turned it over in my hands.“If Victor Devereaux really is my father, I need to know. And if he isn’t…” I paused, struggling to finish the thought. “I need to know that too.”J