Chapter 3
He arrived thirty-three days later.
The front camera showed two armored SUVs at the gate, six men, and Marco in a black overcoat. He pressed the intercom once.
Sanja looked through the monitor. “Should I call the police?”
“Not yet.”
“Should I get the shotgun?”
“Definitely not.”
“Your mother would have said yes.”
“My mother thought subtlety was cowardice.”
Navina finished feeding Mila, burped her, and handed her to Sanja. Then she fed Luca. Forty minutes passed before she approached the gate. Marco had not moved. His men were restless. He was terrifyingly still.
“You waited,” he said.
“My children were hungry.”
His gaze dropped involuntarily toward the house. “I want to see them.”
“No.”
The word struck him harder than a slap.
“They are my son and daughter.”
“They are newborns. You arrived with six armed men and no invitation.”
“The men remain outside.”
“So do you.”
His nostrils flared. “Navina, open the gate.”
Her body remembered obeying that tone. Her spine did not. “Your command has no authority here.”
Marco stepped closer to the bars. Sleeplessness bruised the skin beneath his eyes. His tie was crooked — a detail so unlike him that it gave her a vicious spark of satisfaction.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I asked whether you knew I was pregnant. You chose not to ask why.”
His face went blank. She saw him replay the moment at the dinner before she signed — when she had asked directly, when he had dismissed the question as irrelevant.
“You had the report in your purse.”
“Yes.”
“You let me sign.”
“You brought two lawyers to rush me. Your arrogance did the rest.”
His hand tightened around one of the iron bars. “Let me see them once.” The request came rough, almost stripped of command.
Her resolve trembled — then hardened when she noticed the black sedan parked fifty yards down the road. A telephoto lens flashed behind its windshield.
“Who is watching?” she asked.
Marco turned. His entire body changed. One of his guards moved. The sedan accelerated away before the man reached it.
“Rutkowski?” Navina asked.
“Possibly. Your alliance brought surveillance to my children.”
“My alliance is finished.” She looked at him sharply. “Wioletta accessed restricted medical information.”
He said nothing.
“She claimed she was protecting me. I ended the engagement.”
“How noble.”
“I did not know she called you.”
“Ignorance is your favorite defense.”
The words cut. He accepted them. “I will secure this property.”
“No armed men inside the fence.”
“That is reckless.”
“That is my boundary.”
He stared at her through the bars. Possessiveness darkened his eyes — the same dangerous heat that once convinced her being wanted meant being valued.
“They are Gerbick blood,” he said.
“They are Luca and Mila. Learn the difference before you say another word.”
Marco went still at their names. “Luca,” he repeated. “Mila.”
The tenderness in his voice nearly opened the gate. Navina stepped back instead.
“Your attorney may contact mine.”
She closed the gate.
Marco returned a week later without visible guards — though Navina spotted two vehicles at the ends of the road. He brought infant supplies, handmade blankets from Serbia, and a wooden box bearing Goran’s crest. She refused all of it.
The third time, he brought only documents — a proposed security agreement. “You control personnel placement and access. No cameras inside. No one crosses the fence without your authorization.”
The threat from the sedan was real. Refusing protection out of pride would endanger the twins. She approved perimeter security under her own contract.
Marco mistook the concession for progress. “May I see them now?”
“No.”
“What will it take?”
“Time cannot be purchased.”
His gaze heated. “Everything has a price.”
“That belief is why you are standing outside.”
Goran Luc arrived in late August — in a wheelchair, accompanied by four guards and a private physician. Advanced lung cancer had hollowed his face, but authority still clung to him like smoke.
He did not greet Navina. “Where is the boy?”
“There are two children.”
“The male carries the line.”
“Then your line has a problem. Both children carry my surname.”
“You lived under our protection for three years.”
“I lived under surveillance for three years.”
“We did not mistreat you.”
“You placed a surrogacy brochure beside my dinner plate.”
“You had failed to conceive.”
Navina leaned forward. “I was not livestock failing a breeding schedule.”
The old don struck the arm of his wheelchair. His physician reached for the oxygen mask, but Goran waved him away. “Let me hold my grandson before I die.”
For one dangerous instant, pity pressed against Navina’s ribs. Then Goran added: “The girl may remain with you. The boy belongs at the Gerbick estate.”
The pity died. “Neither child belongs to you.”
His guards shifted. Sanja appeared in the kitchen doorway holding a cast iron skillet with both hands. Navina almost smiled.
“If anyone takes one step toward that nursery,” she said, “the recording of this conversation goes to the court, the press, and every family deciding whether the Gerbick organization is stable enough to lead.”
Goran looked toward the small camera above the fireplace. “You threaten me in my grandson’s house?”
“This is my house. You were invited because illness deserves compassion. It does not excuse entitlement.”
He turned to Marco, who had entered behind the wheelchair. “Control your wife.”
Marco gazed at Navina. The room waited to see which man he would become.
“She is not my wife,” he said. “And she does not require control.”
Goran’s face darkened. Marco stepped between the guards and the nursery. “Everyone leaves.”
“You would choose her over your blood.”
“She is the mother of my blood. You will speak to her with respect or never approach the children again.”
May you like
Navina’s pulse stumbled. Marco had not defended her once during their marriage. Now he challenged the patriarch who had taught him power. It was too late to repair the past.
It was not meaningless.
