I Met Four Boys Who Looked Exactly Like Me—Then Their Mother Said I’d Disappeared Six Years Ago.

Adrian’s posture instantly shifted back into that of an armed syndicate boss. He pulled a concealed sleek black sidearm from a drawer beneath the desk and checked the chamber with a quiet, practiced click.

"Stay behind me," Adrian instructed Mara, pushing her gently behind his broad frame toward the inner bedroom corridor.

"Adrian, what's happening?" Mara whispered, her heart hammering against her ribs as she looked back at her four sleeping boys.

"The Cartwrights don't lose quietly," Adrian said, his gray-blue eyes scanning the main entrance monitor. "And my father left behind loyalists who would rather see my empire destroyed than see it handed to four boys born outside a high-society contract."

On the monitor, three black SUVs pulled into the restricted subterranean parking level of his building. Men in dark suits were spilling out, bypassing the building's outer security protocols with high-level clearance codes—codes that could only have come from someone inside the Blackwood inner circle.

Adrian turned to Mara. He took her face in both of his hands, his grip firm, warm, and protective.

"In the master closet, there is a panic room," Adrian said, his voice deadly calm. "Take Milo, Mason, Max, and Micah inside. Lock the steel door from the inside. Do not open it for anyone except me."

"Adrian... please," Mara breathed, her hands grasping his light-gray jacket. Despite six years of pain, the thought of losing him now—just as the terrible truth had finally come to light—terrified her.

Adrian leaned down and pressed a short, fierce kiss to her forehead. "Six years ago, they kept me from you because I was weak and unconscious. Tonight, I am awake."

He walked over to the sofa, picked up Milo gently without waking him, and carried him toward the hallway, with Mara frantically gathering the other three sleepy boys in her arms.

As the heavy reinforced door of the panic room clicked shut, sealing Mara and the quadruplets safely inside, Adrian stood alone in the grand hallway of his penthouse.

He unbuttoned his suit jacket, tossed it onto the marble floor, rolled up his crisp white sleeves to reveal the intricate dark tattoos wrapping around his forearms, and raised his weapon toward the private elevator doors.