PART 2 — THE EYES OF THE HAIL FAMILY
I stared directly at the woman who had just called my daughter a bastard.
The entire street remained silent.
Hundreds of guests stood beneath the church's entrance, afraid to say a word. The people who had come expecting to witness a glamorous wedding were now witnessing something no newspaper was ever supposed to know about.
I could hear the rain pounding against the pavement.
But inside my head, there was only one thought.
“She is my daughter.”
I stepped out of the limousine.
My fiancée, Isabella, stood on the church steps, her face pale with fury.
“Ethan, what are you doing?”
I didn't answer.
I only looked at Mave.
Three years.
For three years, I had convinced myself that she had betrayed me.
For three years, I had hated the woman who had once been my wife.
For three years, I believed she had left me for money.
But now she was standing in front of me, thinner than I remembered, her hair soaked from the rain, one arm wrapped tightly around a little girl who was trembling from the cold.
“Mave...”
She looked at me.
The eyes that had haunted me for years were exactly the same as the day we separated.
But this time, there was no love in them.
Only fear.
“Don't come any closer.”
I stopped.
“What is her name?”
Mave looked down at the little girl.
“Lily.”
“How old is she?”
“Three.”
My heart stopped.
I quickly did the math in my head.
Three years.
Three years ago, Mave disappeared.
Three years ago, I thought she had left me the moment she discovered she was pregnant.
I looked at Lily.
She was staring at me.
She wasn't crying.
She wasn't speaking.
She was simply looking at me.
And those eyes...
There was no way to mistake them.
My eyes.
My father's eyes.
The eyes of the entire Hail family.
I slowly knelt in front of her.
“Hello.”
Lily tightened her grip on her mother's old coat.
Then she asked a question that made my entire body go cold.
“Are you... my daddy?”
I couldn't breathe.
Mave immediately pulled her closer.
“Lily, don't...”
I looked up at Mave.
“What have you told her?”
“Nothing.”
“Then how does she know?”
Mave fell silent.
Isabella stepped forward from behind me.
“Enough.”
I turned around.
She walked down the church steps, still wearing the proud expression of a woman who had always been accustomed to having everyone bow before her.
“Ethan, you're making a spectacle of yourself in front of five hundred guests.”
I looked at her.
“The wedding is over.”
A wave of whispers swept through the crowd.
Isabella froze.
“What did you say?”
“I said the wedding is over.”
“You can't do this!”
“Yes, I can.”
I took the engagement ring off my finger.
Isabella stared at it.
Then she looked at me.
“You're destroying the alliance between our families because of a woman who abandoned you?”
I looked at Lily.
“No.”
I dropped the ring onto the stone pavement.
“I'm ending it because I just discovered that I have a daughter.”
Isabella laughed.
It was a cold, contemptuous laugh.
“You haven't even had a DNA test.”
“I don't need one to recognize my own child's eyes.”
“You will regret this.”
“I've regretted enough for three years.”
Isabella clenched her jaw.
“You have no idea who you're standing against.”
I stepped closer to her.
“No. But I know exactly who I'm protecting.”
I turned toward my security team.
“Get Mave and Lily into the car.”
Mave immediately shook her head.
“No.”
I looked at her.
“Where else are you going to run?”
“I wasn't running.”
“Then why didn't you come to me?”
Mave bit her lip.
“Because of your mother.”
Everything around me seemed to disappear.
I slowly asked,
“What did she do?”
Mave looked toward the church.
Through the glass doors, I saw my mother standing among the guests.
She wasn't panicking.
She wasn't surprised.
In fact...
She was smiling.
A smile that sent a chill down my spine.
I turned back to Mave.
“What did she say to you?”
“She gave me a choice.”
“What choice?”
Mave began to cry.
“Either leave you...”
She looked at Lily.
“...or my daughter would die.”
I stood completely still.
“What?”
“She said that if I gave birth and stayed in New York, Lily wouldn't live to see her first birthday.”
I couldn't hear the rain anymore.
All I could hear was the pounding of blood in my ears.
“Do you have proof?”
Mave reached into her worn bag.
She pulled out a crumpled envelope.
“The last thing she sent me.”
I opened it.
Inside was a photograph.
A picture of Mave while she was pregnant.
On the back was a handwritten message.
“If you want the child to live, disappear from New York.”
I recognized the handwriting.
My mother's.
But that wasn't what frightened me most.
There was another piece of paper beneath the photograph.
A list.
The names of people who had once worked for the Hail family.
Some were dead.
Some had disappeared.
And at the bottom of the list...
Was a name I never expected to see.
Isabella's father.
I looked at Mave.
“Where did you get this?”
“I found it in your mother's safe.”
“You broke into my house?”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“Someone gave it to me.”
“Who?”
Mave looked toward the church.
Her face suddenly turned pale.
“He said that if I wanted Lily to stay alive...”
She hesitated.
“...I had to find you on the exact day you married Isabella.”
A cold sensation ran down my spine.
“Why?”
Mave didn't get the chance to answer.
A gunshot rang out.
BANG!
The limousine window exploded.
I immediately lunged forward and covered Lily with my body.
Mave screamed.
The crowd scattered in panic.
My security team drew their weapons and pulled me behind the car.
Isabella stood frozen on the church steps.
But the bullet wasn't what caught my attention.
It was my mother.
She was still standing in the church doorway.
And she was staring directly at Lily.
Not me.
Not Mave.
Lily.
Then she slowly raised one finger to her throat...
And dragged it across.
I understood immediately.
This wasn't a warning.
It was a declaration of war.
I held Lily tighter.
For the first time in three years, I realized I had made a terrible mistake.
I had believed Mave was the one who betrayed me.
But the truth could be far worse.
Because if my mother had lied about Lily...
Then there was a very good chance she had lied about the night Mave disappeared too.
And if Isabella's father was truly involved...
Then today's wedding had never been a marriage.
It had been a trap.
A trap that had been three years in the making.
And I had just walked out of it...
By declaring war on both families.
