Chương 3 - the letter in the blanket
The realization hit the room like a sudden, quiet wave. Emily looked from the photograph in the locket down to the small girl sitting on the sofa. The resemblance wasn't to Ryan directly—it was the shared Vane family bloodline.
"Luke had a child?" Emily asked, her voice filled with quiet awe as she sat beside Maya on the couch. "Why didn't he tell us? Why would anyone hide her in our walls?"
Ryan reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded piece of lined paper that had been tucked inside the locket's velvet backing. The paper was worn, stained with water spots, and written in a delicate, frantic cursive.
"It's from Anna," Ryan said, reading the signature at the bottom. "Luke's fiancée. The woman who disappeared after his funeral."
Ryan unfolded the paper, his gravelly voice reading the handwritten lines aloud:
Ryan,
If you are reading this, it means I am either captured or dead. When Luke was murdered four years ago, it wasn't a random hit by the rival family. It was ordered by Victor Valenti to wipe out the Vane bloodline and seize our family's European trust accounts.
I have kept Maya hidden in small towns for four years, but Valenti's men found us last week in Milwaukee. I am leaving Maya at your estate because your house is the only place on earth strong enough to keep her alive.
Protect her, Ryan. She is the last piece of Luke left in this world.
Emily wiped a quiet tear from her cheek, reaching out to stroke Maya's hair. "Anna gave her life to get this child to our front gate..."
Maya looked up from her soup bowl, her dark eyes clear and sad. "My mommy told me to go through the little tunnel when the lights went off. She said Uncle Ryan would beat the bad men."
Ryan stepped up to the sofa, kneeling in front of the two little girls. He reached out his broad, calloused hand, gently covering Maya's tiny fingers.
"Your mommy was right, Maya," Ryan said, his deep voice carrying an absolute, unshakeable authority. "No one touches you in this house."
Suddenly, the heavy mahogany front doors of the estate echoed with three hard, deliberate knocks.
Ryan stood up in an instant, his right hand moving smoothly beneath his suit jacket to rest on the grip of his heavy silver revolver. He motioned for Emily to take the girls into the back room.
May you like
Marcus, his broad-shouldered security chief, stepped into the living room, his face pale under the entryway lights.
"Boss," Marcus whispered, keeping his voice low. "We have an unmarked vehicle at the main gate. It's Victor Valenti's legal counsel... and he brought two city marshals with a search warrant for a missing child."
