Chapter 2
The smile stayed with me all the way to the hospital.
I saw it every time I closed my eyes.
Adrian standing between two federal agents, his wrists being pulled behind his back, his expensive white shirt stained with champagne from the overturned table.
He should have looked afraid.
He should have looked furious.
Instead, he looked satisfied.
As if the raid had happened exactly the way he expected.
“Mrs. Blackwood?”
The paramedic’s voice dragged me back.
I was lying on a stretcher inside the ambulance with both hands over my stomach.
A monitor was strapped around me.
The sound of my baby’s heartbeat filled the small space.
Fast.
Steady.
Alive.
“Is that normal?” I asked.
“For now, yes.”
For now.
Two words I immediately hated.
Another contraction tightened across my abdomen.
I grabbed the edge of the stretcher.
The paramedic watched the monitor.
“How far along are you?”
“Thirty-four weeks.”
“Any bleeding?”
“No.”
“Pain?”
“Yes.”
“How severe?”
I laughed once, but there was no humor in it.
“My husband hit me in the stomach.”
The paramedic’s expression changed.
“I know.”
Of course he knew.
Half the guests had been recording.
Not to help me.
Not to stop Adrian.
To capture the scandal.
By morning, clips would probably be everywhere.
Blackwood Billionaire Hits Pregnant Wife At Baby Shower.
What a headline.
The ambulance doors opened.
Doctors rushed me through the emergency entrance.
Agent Rebecca Sloan followed.
She was still wearing the same navy suit she had worn during the raid. Her dark hair had loosened from its bun, and there was something unusually tense in her face.
She stayed several steps behind while nurses moved me into a maternity examination room.
“Your husband cannot come back here,” one nurse assured me.
“He’s in federal custody.”
I wanted to believe that meant I was safe.
I didn’t.
The doctor arrived minutes later.
Dr. Helen Parker.
She had treated me twice during the pregnancy after my regular obstetrician went on maternity leave.
Her eyes moved quickly over the bruising beginning to form beneath my ribs.
“We’re going to do an ultrasound,” she said. “The baby’s heart rate is reassuring, but trauma this late in pregnancy can cause placental complications.”
My throat closed.
“Is my baby going to die?”
“We are going to do everything possible to prevent that.”
That was not an answer.
Rebecca stood near the door.
I looked at her.
“Tell me the truth about that account.”
“Not yet.”
“Agent Sloan.”
“You need medical treatment.”
“And if I’m about to be arrested?”
Her face tightened.
“You’re not under arrest.”
“Yet.”
She didn’t answer.
That frightened me more.
The ultrasound took twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes of staring at a gray screen while a technician moved the wand across my abdomen.
Then I saw a small hand.
A curved spine.
A beating heart.
My baby moved.
I started crying.
The technician smiled gently.
“Strong heartbeat.”
“Placenta?”
“The doctor needs to interpret everything.”
Another careful answer.
A few minutes later Dr. Parker returned.
“There is no obvious placental separation right now.”
I exhaled.
“But your contractions are concerning. We’re admitting you overnight for monitoring.”
“Can I stay pregnant?”
“That’s the goal.”
I nodded.
I had survived infertility treatments.
Needles.
Surgeries.
Two failed embryo transfers.
One miscarriage so early Adrian had told me it “barely counted.”
And now, after everything, he had tried to destroy the one thing I loved before I had even met my child.
The door opened.
Rebecca stepped inside after the doctor left.
She closed it behind her.
Then she placed a thin folder on the tray beside my bed.
“You need to understand something,” she said.
I stared at the folder.
“I already understand. Adrian framed me.”
“We don’t know that.”
“I saw his face.”
“That isn’t evidence.”
“It is to me.”
Rebecca pulled a chair close.
“The account was opened four months ago.”
I frowned.
“You said the transfer happened three days ago.”
“The twelve million did. But the account itself existed earlier.”
“That’s impossible.”
“It was opened using a certified copy of your passport, your Social Security information, two banking verification documents, and records from your fertility clinic.”
My skin went cold.
“Why would anyone need my fertility records?”
“To prove identity history. The application included a medical billing statement that matched your home address and signature.”
“I never gave anyone permission.”
“Someone did.”
She opened the folder.
There were copies.
My passport.
My driver’s license.
A fertility consent form.
My signature.
Except I had not signed the banking documents.
“They copied it.”
“Yes.”
“From the clinic forms.”
“That’s one possibility.”
I stared harder.
There was something else.
A list of login records.
“What is that?”
“Access activity.”
I picked it up.
My electronic investment account had been accessed multiple times from an IP address associated with the Blackwood estate.
“That proves it.”
“Not exactly. You lived there.”
“I never logged into that account.”
Rebecca watched me.
“Who had access to your office?”
“Adrian.”
“Anyone else?”
“Housekeepers. Vivienne occasionally. Conrad if he wanted something. Half that family behaved as if every room belonged to them.”
“Your laptop?”
“Password protected.”
“Was it at the estate today?”
I stopped breathing.
It had been.
Before the baby shower, I had left it inside the upstairs study.
Hidden behind several books.
It contained nothing directly related to the FBI investigation because Rebecca had warned me never to keep evidence there.
But it contained years of personal records.
Tax documents.
Scanned identification.
Medical files.
Passwords.
“My laptop,” I whispered.
Rebecca understood immediately.
She reached for her phone.
Two minutes later, agents were searching the study.
The laptop was gone.
I stared at Rebecca.
“You searched the house.”
“We’re still searching.”
“Adrian took it.”
“Maybe.”
“You keep saying maybe.”
“Because if I decide something before the evidence proves it, I become useless to you.”
I looked away.
Outside the room, hospital carts rolled past.
Someone laughed at the nurses’ station.
The normal sounds felt offensive.
“How much trouble am I in?”
Rebecca was quiet.
“That depends on what we find.”
“Rebecca.”
It was the first time I had used her first name.
She looked at me.
“I risked everything for you.”
“I know.”
“I gave you Conrad’s account numbers. I photographed invoices. I recorded Adrian talking about bribes.”
“I know.”
“I stayed married to him because your team asked me not to change my behavior.”
Her jaw tightened.
“We never asked you to put yourself in physical danger.”
“You asked me to keep pretending.”
“That’s different.”
“Not when the man beside you is Adrian.”
She looked down.
For once, the federal agent had nothing to say.
Then her phone rang.
She answered.
“Sloan.”
Her expression changed within seconds.
“Where?”
A pause.
“Don’t touch anything.”
She ended the call.
“What?”
Rebecca looked at me.
“They found your laptop.”
Relief hit me first.
Then I saw her face.
“Where?”
“In Conrad Blackwood’s private office.”
My heart started racing.
“That proves—”
“There’s more.”
She hesitated.
“Agents found a flash drive connected to it.”
I swallowed.
“What was on it?”
“Copies of the offshore transfer instructions.”
My mouth fell open.
“And a spreadsheet detailing eleven additional transfers.”
“I’ve never seen that.”
“They’re all under your name.”
My monitor started beeping faster.
Rebecca stood.
“Slow your breathing.”
“I didn’t do it.”
“I know what you’re saying.”
“You know I didn’t do it.”
She didn’t answer.
I stared at her.
“Rebecca.”
Before she could speak, someone knocked.
A federal agent entered.
He was tall, gray-haired, maybe fifty.
I recognized him.
Agent Mark Keller.
Rebecca’s supervisor.
He had attended two of my secret meetings with the FBI.
He looked at me with something dangerously close to pity.
“We have a problem.”
Rebecca stepped into his path.
“She’s a cooperating witness.”
“She’s also potentially the beneficiary of twelve million dollars.”
“I’m not the beneficiary!” I snapped.
Keller looked at me.
“The money moved again two hours ago.”
“What?”
“From the account under your name to another offshore entity.”
“I was at my baby shower.”
“The transfer was automated.”
“By who?”
“That’s what we’re investigating.”
I pressed both hands against my stomach.
Another contraction came.
Stronger.
The monitor changed.
A nurse hurried into the room.
“You both need to leave.”
Keller did not move.
Rebecca pushed him toward the door.
“Now.”
He finally backed out.
The nurse adjusted the monitor.
“Try to breathe.”
I closed my eyes.
Then my phone buzzed on the table.
Rebecca glanced at it.
One new message.
Unknown number.
I reached for the phone.
The message contained only a photograph.
It showed Adrian sitting inside an FBI interview room.
His hands were cuffed to a metal table.
He was staring directly toward the camera.
Beneath the picture were seven words.
YOU WERE NEVER THE ONLY INFORMANT.
My blood turned cold.
“Rebecca.”
She took the phone.
Her face went pale.
“Where did that come from?”
“I don’t know.”
She enlarged the image.
Then she looked toward the hallway.
“That camera angle is internal.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means this photograph was taken from inside our secure system.”
I stared at her.
Someone had stolen my identity.
Someone knew about the raid.
Someone had access to FBI surveillance.
And suddenly Adrian’s smile made perfect sense.
May you like
He had never expected to escape the raid.
He had expected me to fall with him.
