Chapter 2 - The Ghost from the Past
By morning, Ethan’s vital signs had stabilized. The color had returned to his cheeks, and though his left arm was constrained in a bright blue cast, he was awake, sitting up in his crib, greedily sipping warm apple juice from a cup.
Lily sat on the sofa in the private hospital suite, dressed in clean gray sweatpants and an oversized hoodie that one of the female security guards had brought for her. Dr. Wells had treated her crushed ribs and abdominal wall, binding her torso securely.
The door opened quietly, and Victor walked in, carrying a tray of fresh breakfast, hot coffee, and a stack of confidential folders under his arm.
He set the tray on the coffee table beside Lily. "Eat," he commanded gently. "You haven't had food in twenty-four hours."
"Thank you, Mr. Blackwood," Lily murmured, taking a sip of the warm black coffee.
"Victor," he corrected her, sitting in the armchair opposite her. He set the leather folders down between them. "We are beyond formal titles, Lily. You saved my lineage."
Ethan let out a happy babble from his crib, waving his uninjured right arm. "Li-Li! Li-Li!"
Lily’s eyes lit up, a genuine, beautiful smile breaking across her face for the first time in days. "I’m here, sweet boy," she called back softly.
Victor watched the exchange silently, his dark eyes observing the profound, instinctual bond between the humble nanny and his toddler son. Then, his expression turned serious as he tapped the top folder on the table.
"While you were sleeping last night, my intelligence network began clearing Serena’s personal history," Victor began, his tone businesslike. "She will be arrested by federal marshals at noon today for felony child abuse, poisoning, and attempted manslaughter. Her father’s company was declared insolvent three hours ago."
Lily let out a long breath of relief. "Thank God. She can never touch him again."
"However," Victor continued, his gray eyes narrowing slightly, "when my team ran a deep audit on every staff member who had entered the mansion over the past six months to verify if Serena had accomplices, we ran into an anomaly."
Lily froze, the coffee cup hovering inches from her lips. The color drained from her cheeks.
Victor opened the folder, revealing a series of printed documents, old police reports, and a blurred mugshot of a man with harsh, sunken eyes and a jagged scar across his chin.
"Your real name isn't Lily Parker, is it?" Victor asked calmly. "It’s Eleanor Vance."
Lily set her cup down on the tray with a sharp clatter. Her hands began to shake uncontrollably. "Victor... please. I never meant to lie to you. I didn't come here to steal from you, I swear on my life—"
"I know you didn't," Victor interrupted softly, holding up a hand to calm her terror. "If you were a plant or a threat, you wouldn't have used your body as a shield to protect my son. But I need to know who this man is, Eleanor."
He turned the folder toward her, pointing at the photograph of the scarred man.
"Derek Vance," Lily whispered, her voice barely audible over the hum of the air conditioner. "My ex-husband."
"The report says he was a high-ranking enforcer for the O’Malley syndicate in Detroit," Victor noted, reviewing the text. "He was convicted of armed robbery, assault, and racketeering. He escaped from a maximum-security transport van two years ago."
Tears trickled silently down Lily’s cheeks. "He... he was a monster, Victor. I married him when I was twenty, before I knew what he was. When I tried to leave him, he held a gun to my head. He told me that if I ever ran away, he would track down every person I had ever spoken to and burn their homes to the ground. He beat me until I spent three weeks in an intensive care unit."
Victor’s face hardened into a mask of pure, murderous rage, though his voice remained carefully controlled. "How did you escape?"
"When he was arrested in Detroit, I faked my death," Lily confessed, pulling her knees up to her chest on the sofa. "I bought a stolen social security card from a street dealer, changed my name to Lily Parker, and fled to Chicago. I’ve lived in the shadows for two years, working cash jobs, terrified that every car driving down the street was Derek coming to finish what he started."
She looked at Victor, her gray-blue eyes filled with raw desperation. "That’s why I was so afraid of Serena’s threats. She told me she had private investigators. She said if I stepped out of line, she would run my prints and post my location online. She knew I was hiding from someone."
Victor leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, bringing his face close to hers. "Serena didn't know the full truth. She was using bluff tactics to keep you quiet."
"And Derek?" Lily gasped. "Does he know where I am?"
Victor reached out, taking Lily’s cold, trembling hand into his own large, warm grip. He squeezed her fingers firmly.
"He doesn't know yet," Victor said, his dark eyes flashing with a cold, absolute promise that made the air in the room feel heavy. "But he will soon. Because I am going to draw him out into the open."
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Lily blinked, stunned. "What? No! Victor, you don't understand what he’s capable of! He’s a psychopath!"
"He is a street thug with a badge of cowardice," Victor replied, standing up in his tailored suit, looking down at her like an emperor preparing for war. "He hunted a helpless woman. But he has never encountered a man who owns the shadows he hides in. You protected my child from a monster, Eleanor. Now it is my turn to protect you from yours."
