Chapter 7 - THE IMPOSSIBLE WORD
The frantic footsteps outside grew louder, rapidly approaching the open threshold of the forbidden suite.
"Nora!" Emma’s voice screamed again, closer now, breaking with hysterical desperation. "Oh God, please, no... Nora!"
On Adrian’s lap, the three-year-old girl shifted again, reacting to the distant sound of her mother’s voice.
She did not wake up entirely. She remained half-asleep, nestled deep within the warm embrace of the muscular, bare-chested man who was holding her as if she were made of fragile glass. She rubbed her small face against his broad chest, her tiny mouth opening slightly as she let out a soft, sleepy murmur.
"Addy..." Nora whispered softly.
The word was quiet. It was a toddler's clumsy, affectionate abbreviation—a sweet, intimate nickname meant only for one person in the entire world.
Adrian Kane instantly stopped breathing.
The entire universe seemed to collapse into a single, terrifying point of absolute stillness.
His dark eyes dilated until they were almost entirely black. The blood in his veins burned like liquid fire. His broad chest froze mid-expansion, his lungs locked, his heart dropping into a cold, dark abyss of realization.
Addy.
No one on earth had ever called him that. Not his corporate partners, not his security staff, not his family, not his closest friends. In his thirty-eight years of life, only one person had ever used that soft, private nickname behind locked doors in the quiet hours of the morning.
Evelyn.
May you like
His wife.
Adrian stared down at Nora’s small, sleeping face as though she were a ghost that had just materialized out of thin air. The world around him faded into a blur of meaningless shapes and shadows. The antique blue-and-gold furniture, the white cat sleeping on the chair, the sunlit windows—everything vanished, leaving only the terrifying, impossible reality of the word that still echoed in his ears.
