Chapter 2 - Griffin Had Known About the Twins Before Hazel Called

I waited until the girls were sleeping in a protected pediatric-family room before confronting him.

Griffin stood near the hospital window overlooking Seattle, his hands inside his coat pockets. The city lights reflected across the glass, making him look almost like the man I remembered—except the younger Griffin would never have stood still while danger existed somewhere beyond his reach.

“How long?”

He understood the question.

“Not eight years.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“Six months.”

My anger came so quickly that the monitor attached to my finger began alarming.

A nurse entered, checked my blood pressure, and told both of us that whatever conversation we were having needed to become less stressful.

Griffin waited until she left.

Then he explained.

Six months earlier, one of his investigators flagged a school photograph circulating online after Hazel and Iris won a district science competition. Their last name was Bennett—mine after I changed it—but both girls strongly resembled Griffin’s late mother.

The investigator mentioned it as a coincidence.

Griffin did not believe in coincidences.

He ordered a discreet background review.

My new identity connected quickly once someone knew what to search.

He discovered where I lived.

Where I worked.

The twins’ birth date.

He calculated backward.

Nine months.

I felt sick.

“You knew and said nothing?”

“I knew they might be mine.”

“You could have called.”

“I almost did.”

“Six months is a long time to almost call.”

His expression hardened, but not at me.

“At first, I was angry.”

That, at least, I believed.

Griffin had spent years wanting a family he never thought he could safely have. When we were together, he talked about leaving pieces of his world behind but never actually left them.

Then I became pregnant.

I had already watched one car explode outside a restaurant he owned.

I had watched security drag a wounded man through his kitchen.

I knew what enemies did to leverage.

So I left before Griffin knew there was anything to hold against him.

He continued.

After discovering the twins, his first instinct was to come directly to my house.

Then one of his older advisers stopped him.

If Griffin suddenly appeared around two eight-year-old girls after years of distance, anyone watching him would immediately understand what they meant.

So he watched from far away.

The explanation made me furious because part of it was reasonable.

That always made Griffin more dangerous.

He could wrap control inside logic until fear looked like strategy.

“You had people watching my children?”

“Watching for people watching them.”

“That distinction means more to you than it does to me.”

“I know.”

That answer stopped me.

Griffin did not defend himself.

He admitted he should have contacted me through an attorney or neutral intermediary. He kept waiting because he wanted more proof that no one had connected the girls to him.

Then three months earlier, someone breached one of his private archives.

Nothing obviously important disappeared.

But a file connected to my old name had been opened.

From that moment, Griffin increased surveillance around our neighborhood.

I suddenly remembered things.

The same dark sedan parked near school twice.

A man reading a newspaper outside my office building.

The delivery driver who seemed too interested in whether I lived alone.

I had dismissed all of it.

Griffin hadn’t.

“Why didn’t you tell me when you knew someone accessed the file?”

“Because I didn’t know whether contacting you would create the exact danger I was trying to prevent.”

I laughed bitterly.

“So you protected us by deciding what information I was allowed to have.”

His jaw tightened.

“Yes.”

“At least you admit it.”

“I’ve had six months to realize how badly I handled this.”

That sentence sounded different from the Griffin I knew.

Then Detective Quinn entered.

The stimulant in my bloodstream had been traced to my migraine medication.

Several tablets inside my prescription bottle contained the same substance.

Someone had tampered with them.

My pharmacy sealed prescriptions electronically and kept security footage. Investigators already requested records.

The bottle itself showed no obvious signs of damage.

Mara asked who had access to my house.

Me.

The twins.

Mrs. Peterson, who held an emergency key.

A cleaning service every second Wednesday.

My architectural assistant, Colin Price, occasionally dropped off documents.

That was almost everyone.

Then Hazel appeared in the doorway wearing hospital socks and carrying the small notebook she took everywhere.

“I know who came in.”

Every adult turned.

Iris stood behind her.

I sat upright.

“What?”

Hazel opened the notebook.

My daughters inherited my habit of sketching spaces.

Floor plans.

Furniture.

People standing where they should not.

Three days earlier, Hazel had been home sick from school while I attended a client meeting. Mrs. Peterson checked on her every hour, but Hazel spent most of the afternoon upstairs.

She heard the front door.

She assumed I had returned.

Then she saw a man in my office.

“What man?”

Hazel flipped the page.

A rough pencil drawing showed a tall figure near my desk.

She had drawn one detail carefully.

A ring.

Large.

Black stone.

Silver border.

Griffin stopped breathing.

I looked at him.

“You know it.”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

He took the notebook.

The ring carried the crest of an old organization that had once worked for his father.

Not Varga.

Something worse.

The Drake organization itself.

For years, Griffin’s father had used black onyx rings to identify senior lieutenants.

Almost all were dead or retired.

Griffin knew of only three still alive.

One lived in Italy.

One was in prison.

The third man still worked for Griffin.

His name was Malcolm Shaw.

Griffin’s oldest adviser.

The same man who convinced him not to contact me six months earlier.