The Love I Ran From

PART 2 — THE SECRET IN HIS FAMILY

I didn’t sleep that night.

Roman kept his promise. He didn’t ask me to return to his mansion, and he didn’t send guards to stand outside my apartment.

Instead, he sat in a chair beside the examination-room window while Elias investigated the photograph.

For the first time in months, Roman was waiting for my permission rather than giving me instructions.

“Who could possibly know about the babies?” I asked.

“I have enemies,” he replied. “But this feels personal.”

“Personal how?”

He turned his face toward me.

“Because the message mentioned more than heirs.”

Before I could respond, Elias returned with his phone.

“Sir, I’ve identified the sender.”

Roman straightened.

“Who?”

“Your uncle. Victor Dacre.”

My heart skipped.

Roman’s uncle had always treated me with unusual hostility. He had opposed our marriage, claiming I was an ordinary woman who didn’t belong in the Dacre family.

But I never imagined he would be involved in something dangerous.

“Why would he care about my pregnancy?” I asked.

Roman’s expression hardened.

“Because my grandfather left something behind.”

He explained that his grandfather had established a private trust decades ago. According to the family documents, the trust would pass to Roman’s first legitimate children.

Not one child.

All his legitimate children.

And because Roman was the only surviving direct heir of his generation, the twins would inherit controlling interests in several family companies.

Victor had spent years trying to gain control of those assets.

Now he knew about the babies.

“He wants my children?” I whispered.

“He wants what they represent.”

Roman reached for my hand, then stopped before touching it.

“I won’t let him near them.”

I looked at him carefully.

“Roman, I don’t want another promise about protection. I want the truth.”

He nodded.

“Then I’ll tell you everything.”

That afternoon, he revealed something even more disturbing.

Victor had been the person who arranged the private dinner where Roman was shot three years earlier.

The investigation had never produced enough evidence to prove it.

But Roman had suspected him ever since.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.

“Because I thought I could handle it.”

“And you thought locking me inside the mansion would solve everything?”

His head lowered.

“No. I thought it would keep you alive.”

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

Then I placed my hand over my stomach.

“I’m not going back to the mansion, Roman.”

“I know.”

“But I won’t let your family threaten our children either.”

He nodded slowly.

“Tell me what you need.”

I looked at him.

“Start by trusting me.”

For the first time, he didn’t argue.

He simply answered, “I’ll try.”

But that evening, as Elias drove Roman away, my phone received a message from an unknown number.

Ask your husband why his grandfather kept a photograph of another woman beside your grandmother’s wedding picture.

Attached was an old black-and-white photograph.

The woman in it looked exactly like me.

Except she had died more than fifty years ago.

And beneath the photograph were four words:

YOUR CHILDREN KNOW HER.