“Dominic, we should go back to my room.
The doctors haven’t even examined me properly.”
I pulled my arm away without thinking.
Her expression changed immediately.
Mason stood several feet away, pretending not to hear.
“You brought me here,” Vanessa said.
“Remember?”
“I remember.”
“Then act like it.”
I turned to Mason.
“Make sure Vanessa gets whatever doctor she needs.”
Her eyes widened.
“You’re sending your bodyguard with me?”
“I’m staying here.”
“For her?”
I didn’t answer.
Vanessa laughed once, quietly.
“My father was right about you.
He said the only thing you truly love is control.”
Normally, mentioning Arturo as leverage would have sharpened my attention.
This time it barely registered.
“Then tell your father I finally found something I can’t control.”
Vanessa stared at me for several seconds.
Then she walked away.
Her heels struck the tile harder with every step.
I sat in a chair outside the secured maternity doors and waited.
I had ordered men across Chicago with a single sentence.
I had stopped shipments, closed businesses, moved millions, and ended partnerships before the other side understood what had happened.
None of that authority opened the doors in front of me.
Every few minutes, someone in scrubs moved through them.
No one stopped.
No one looked at me long enough for me to ask.
Mason returned twenty minutes later.
“Vanessa’s being examined.”
I nodded.
He remained standing.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“Did you know?”
I looked at the closed doors.
“No.”
It was possibly the smallest answer I had ever given him.
Mason sat two chairs away.
“You want me to do anything?”
There were a hundred things I could have ordered.
Find Claire’s apartment.
Pull her financial records.
Find out which doctors had treated her.
Discover who knew about the pregnancy.
I could have constructed the missing nine months of her life before midnight.
Instead I heard my own voice from the corridor earlier.
Nobody approaches her.
Nobody asks questions.
Protection had already become my favorite excuse for controlling Claire’s life once.
I wasn’t going to do it again.
“No,” I said.
