Chapter 3 - THE TIMELINE DISCOVERY
Slowly, almost against his own conscious will, Grant pushed the door fully open and stepped into the quiet room. His polished leather shoes made no sound against the linoleum floor as he moved toward the side of the hospital bed.
The soft rustle of his suit jacket made Mara turn her head.
Her dark brown eyes, heavy with sleep and physical pain, met his gaze. Neither of them spoke for several long seconds. The silence inside Room 418 was deafening, filled only by the rhythmic, shallow breathing of the two newborn infants lying in their plastic cribs.
Grant stopped at the edge of her bed, looking down at her pale face.
"You were pregnant?" Grant asked, his voice barely audible over the hum of the heart monitor attached to her finger.
Mara did not answer him immediately. She offered no tearful defense, no harsh accusations, and no plea for mercy. She simply turned her head slowly, looking past him toward the two small bassinets resting beneath the amber heat lamp.
Grant watched the movement of her eyes, and then—in an instant of sharp, terrifying clarity—his mind began working through the arithmetic of the timeline.
Seven months ago, his mother had presented him with encrypted bank transfers and recorded phone calls that allegedly proved Mara had leaked security routes to the rival Moretti family. That same night, Mara had been driven out of the Waverly estate under gunpoint, stripped of her position, and forced into exile.
Seven months.
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If she had given birth to full-term, healthy twin boys tonight... she was already two months pregnant on the exact night his family had cast her out into the cold.
Grant’s face drained of all color. The realization washed over him like ice water—Mara had been carrying his heirs while his inner circle was branding her a traitor.
