Chapter 13 - Shadows of the Past
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Two months passed, and the Cole estate had fundamentally transformed.
The sterile glass fortress was now littered with colorful sneakers, scattered board games, and the constant, chaotic presence of David, who visited almost daily. June was blossoming. She had stopped packing her bags when she made mistakes. The coupons had been permanently retired to a scrapbook Nathan kept in his office.
Nathan’s legal team was navigating the complex bureaucracy of formal adoption, smoothing over the emergency kinship placement into a permanent, ironclad reality.
Then, the shadows of Sarah’s past finally caught up to them.
Nathan was sitting in his corner office at Cole Meridian Logistics, reviewing a shipping manifest, when Laura buzzed his intercom. Her voice sounded strained.
"Mr. Cole, there is a man in the lobby demanding to see you," Laura said. "Security tried to escort him out, but he’s causing a scene. He says he has information regarding your sister. And your niece."
Nathan’s blood ran cold. He dropped his pen.
"Send him up. And have security stand outside my door," Nathan ordered.
Three minutes later, the heavy glass doors of his office swung open.
A man swaggered into the room. He looked to be in his late thirties, wearing a cheap, flashy suit that smelled faintly of stale smoke and cheap cologne. His eyes were shifty, calculating, and predatory.
"Nathan Cole," the man smirked, dropping uninvited into one of the expensive leather chairs opposite the desk. "Wow. Nice place. Logistics really pays the bills, huh?"
"Who are you?" Nathan asked, his voice dropping into the icy, ruthless register that terrified his corporate rivals.
"Name's Ray," the man said, leaning back and kicking a scuffed shoe onto his knee. "Ray Miller. I was Sarah's boyfriend back in the day. Before she got sick."
Nathan gripped the edge of his desk. He remembered the police reports from Sarah's file. The mention of an on-again, off-again boyfriend who had been living in the apartment but vanished the moment she died, leaving a five-year-old June to fend for herself.
"You abandoned her," Nathan stated flatly.
"Hey, I panicked," Ray said, holding up his hands in mock surrender. "I was young. But I've done a lot of growing up in the last four years. And I hear through the grapevine that you recently picked up my daughter from the county system."
The air in the office was suddenly sucked out.
May you like
"Your daughter," Nathan repeated, a dark, violent fury igniting in his chest.
"That's right," Ray grinned, his eyes gleaming with greedy anticipation. "June is my biological kid. And I want her back. Or, at least, I want my parental rights respected."
