Chapter 3 - The Path of Cobbles and Ivy
The sun was dropping further, bleeding rich amber and burnt copper into the sky above Bellhaven. The shadows of the tall, narrow townhouses stretched across the street like dark fingers, dividing the cobblestones into alternating ribbons of gold and soot.
Adrian stood up to his full height. His bodyguards immediately moved to flank him, their hands lingering inside their coats, their eyes darting across every shuttered window, every pedestrian stepping out of a bakery or an apothecary shop.
"Stay with the vehicle," Adrian commanded without looking back.
"Adrian, you can’t walk into the old quarter alone," Luca insisted, stepping into his path, his face pale with concern. "If this is an ambush—if someone lured you out here using her memory—we won’t have visual. The streets are too narrow for the Maybach."
Adrian’s gaze snapped to his lieutenant. The look in his gray eyes was so lethal, so thoroughly stripped of human reason, that Luca stopped dead in his tracks.
"If anyone is waiting at the end of this street with a gun," Adrian said, his voice dropping into a register that made the hair on the back of Mateo’s neck stand up, "I will burn this entire harbor to the waterline. Stay with the car."
Luca swallowed hard and nodded once. "Yes, sir."
Adrian looked down. Emma was still holding his index finger, her small hand warm against his calloused skin. She didn't wait for him to dismiss his men; she simply began walking, her little silver shoes clacking rhythms against the ancient stones.
He followed.
It was an extraordinary sight: the most feared syndicate patriarch on the eastern seaboard, a man whose name caused judges to sign dismissals and rivals to flee the country, being led down an alleyway by a five-year-old girl in a sapphire princess dress.
They turned down *Rue de l'Ancre*, a passage so narrow that the eaves of the slate-roofed buildings nearly touched overhead, blocking out the sky. The air here was cool and smelled of salt, blooming wisteria, and woodsmoke from kitchen hearths.
Adrian watched the back of Emma’s head. Her chestnut curls bounced with every step, catching the faint glints of light that filtered between the chimney pots. The posture, the tilt of her chin, the confident, swinging cadence of her walk—it was an agonizing mirror. Claire had walked like that through the gardens of the Vale estate, entirely unconcerned with the world’s violence, as if the earth existed solely to support her next stride.
*How?* The question pounded against Adrian’s skull like a sledgehammer.
If Claire was alive, she had abandoned him. She had allowed him to weep over an empty grave. She had allowed him to wage a war that claimed dozens of lives to avenge her death. She had vanished into this sleepy coastal town, built a life, and bore a child.
*Whose child?*
The thought entered his mind like a jagged blade coated in poison. Claire had been missing for seven years. Emma was five. The math was a relentless, crushing weight. If Claire had been alive all this time, who was the father? Who had touched her? Who had sheltered her from the reach of the Vale empire?
His grip on Emma’s small hand tightened almost imperceptibly, his instincts tightening like coiled wire. Emma didn't cry out. She simply turned her head, looked up at him with those wide hazel eyes, and gave his finger an encouraging tug.
"Almost there," she said cheerfully. "Don't be slow. Mommy says if you walk slow, the sea gulls steal your biscuits."
Adrian swallowed the lump of ash in his throat. "Does she?"
"Yes. And the baker gives me biscuits with pink sugar, but only if I say please in French."
"You speak French?"
"A little bit," she chirped, hopping over a sunken drain in the stones. "*Bonjour. Merci. Au revoir.* That’s all."
Claire had been fluent. She had spent her childhood summers in Provence before her family lost their fortune and she had crossed Adrian’s path.
May you like
The air grew thicker, cooler, as they emerged from the alley into a secluded square. In the center stood a dry stone fountain, surrounded by ancient elms whose roots buckled the pavement. And at the far end of the square, tucked behind a low iron fence, stood the house.
***
