Chapter 1 - The Two Heartbeats
Dr. Elias Grant rested both palms on the dark walnut table and leaned forward.
He did not flinch beneath Adrian Mercer’s lethal, unblinking glare.
“Those are your children, Adrian,” the doctor said, each syllable hitting like an iron weight.
Adrian’s breath snagged in his throat, a sharp pain slicing across his ribs.
His gaze dropped to the glossy thermal paper where two tiny, curved crescents rested within a dark circle.
Beneath the images, printed in clinical white text, were the measurements: Twin A, 11w4d. Twin B, 11w3d. Viable cardiac activity detected.
“Claire is pregnant?” Adrian’s voice sounded hollow, stripped of the terrifying baritone that ruled Chicago's docks and penthouses.
“Eleven weeks and four days,” Dr. Grant answered, his tone heavy with exhaustion and disgust.
“She has been severely malnourished, suffering from acute stress-induced hypotension, and carrying your twins while you had her tracked by street thugs.”
Adrian reached toward the printout with fingers that were suddenly, noticeably trembling.
The man who had executed rival capos without blinking could not steady his own hand.
“Why didn't she tell me?” Adrian rasped, lifting the paper to the midday light.
“When was she supposed to tell you?” Dr. Grant countered, his eyes flashing with rare, venomous disdain.
“Between your orders to freeze her credit cards, or while your lawyer was drafting paperwork to throw her out of your home?”
Adrian felt the floor tilt beneath his Italian leather shoes.
His thoughts raced backward through four months of ice and silence.
He remembered the morning sickness she had tried to disguise as a stomach virus behind closed bathroom doors.
He remembered the way she had cradled her abdomen on the sofa while he hurled accusations across the marble foyer.
He had mistaken her tears for guilt, her exhaustion for shame, and her silence for defeat.
“Who was the man at the Langford Hotel?” Adrian demanded, gripping the edge of the conference table until the wood groaned.
“If she was carrying my children, why was she meeting Marcus Vance in secret?”
Dr. Grant reached back into his leather folder and withdrew a second document, slapping it down directly over the divorce decree.
It was a laboratory medical requisition stamped with the seal of Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
“Marcus Vance isn't a mob courier, Adrian,” Dr. Grant said coldly.
“He is the premier fetal geneticist in the Midwest, and he was Claire’s late mother’s treating physician.”
“Claire met him at the Langford because your own lieutenant, Victor Ross, told her that your private medical accounts were being monitored by enemies.”
Adrian froze, the blood in his veins turning to liquid nitrogen.
“Victor told her that?”
“Victor told her that if you discovered she was pregnant before your territorial peace treaty was signed, the Colombo family would target the clinic.”
Dr. Grant picked up his pen and pointed it straight at Adrian’s chest.
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“She met Dr. Vance to smuggle out specialized hormone injections to keep your babies alive without tipping off your rivals.”
“And you,” the doctor whispered, “used that meeting to brand her a traitor and throw her to the wolves.”
