Chapter 3 - THE PRICE OF SURVIVAL
The struggle was brief, brutal, and fought in the dark.
Nolan didn't fight like a billionaire; he fought like a man who had built his way to the top of a ruthless industry. He used the heavy mahogany lamp on the bedside table to disarm the first attacker, the crash of glass and metal echoing through the nursery. Mae, showing a ferocity Nolan had never seen, threw a heavy box of blocks at the second man, distracting him long enough for Nolan to pin him against the doorframe.
Within minutes, the men were incapacitated, their weapons secured.
Nolan didn't call the police. He called his head of security, a man who functioned outside the law, to clean up the mess.
When the dust settled, Nolan sat on the floor of the nursery, his shirt torn, his knuckles bruised. Nora was asleep in Mae’s arms, oblivious to the violence that had just threatened her life.
“She tried to kill us,” Mae whispered, her voice trembling. “She tried to take her.”
Nolan looked at the man he had once been—the man who would have handled this with a lawsuit, a buyout, or a public scandal. That man was dead.
“She won’t get another chance,” Nolan said, his voice cold. “I am going to dismantle her father’s firm, brick by brick, until they have nothing left but the clothes on their backs. And then, I’m going to make sure Celeste Wainwright never sets foot in this state again.”
Mae watched him, seeing the darkness in him that he had always kept hidden behind his suits and his board meetings. She realized then that Nora was safe, but she also realized that the man she had loved four years ago had been replaced by something harder, colder, and far more powerful.
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“Nolan,” Mae said gently. “Don’t become the person she wants you to be.”
Nolan looked at her, and for a second, the hardness melted. “I don’t care what I become, Mae. As long as she is safe.”
