Chapter 5 - The Two Minutes
Emma Lawson thought she had misheard him.
Adrian Vale sat in a leather chair with blood soaking through the side of his white shirt, one hand pressed beneath his ribs and the other gripping the edge of the desk. Outside the study, men were shouting orders through the halls of the lakefront mansion. Somewhere downstairs, a door slammed. Somewhere farther away, tires screamed across wet pavement.
But inside that room, the most feared man in Chicago was trembling.
Not from the wound.
From something much older.
Emma had watched Adrian stare down armed men without blinking. She had watched an entire restaurant fall silent when he entered. She had seen grown men twice her size lower their voices when he merely turned his head.
Now his dark eyes were wet.
“Just two minutes,” he said again, his voice rough. “Please.”
Emma crossed the space between them and wrapped her arms carefully around his shoulders.
Adrian went rigid.
Then something inside him gave way.
His forehead dropped against her collarbone, and his breath left him in a shudder. One arm circled her waist. His fingers clutched the back of her sweater as though she were the only thing keeping him from falling through the floor.
Emma closed her eyes.
She had imagined this moment differently for nearly fifteen years.
She had imagined anger.
Accusations.
Maybe revenge.
She had never imagined holding him while he cried.
Her lips moved near his hair.
“My father held you like this once.”
Adrian stopped breathing.
Emma felt the change immediately.
His fingers loosened.
His head lifted slowly.
“What did you say?”
Emma swallowed.
“My father’s name was Owen Lawson.”
The color drained from Adrian Vale’s face.
She continued before fear could stop her.
“He was the paramedic who found you in the Kingsley garage the night your father died.”
Adrian stared at her.
The ruthless control returned to his features, but only on the surface. Beneath it, she saw the terrified seventeen-year-old boy her father had once described.
“No,” he whispered.
Emma’s heart pounded.
“He told me you kept asking for your mother.”
Adrian’s eyes widened.
“He said you wouldn’t let anyone touch you until he told you something.”
Adrian’s lips parted.
Emma repeated the words her father had carried home from that bloody winter night.
“Stay with me for two minutes, kid. Just give me two minutes.”
Adrian looked as though the floor had vanished beneath him.
The breath left his chest in a long, ragged exhale. His hand reached up, his fingers touching the edge of her sleeve, as if trying to verify that she was real, that she wasn't a ghost summoned by the loss of blood and the ghosts of his past.
"Owen Lawson," Adrian whispered. The name sounded heavy on his tongue, sacred and painful all at once. "Owen... he was the one with the blue jacket. The one who stayed."
"Yes," Emma said softly, tears finally overflowing her lashes, dropping onto his damp black hair. "He stayed."
Outside, the study door burst open.
Three of Adrian’s security men rushed in, their weapons drawn, followed closely by a private physician carrying a silver medical case.
"Mr. Vale!" the lead security guard shouted. "The perimeter is secure! Federal agents are entering the main gates!"
Adrian didn't look at them. He kept his green eyes locked on Emma’s face, his hand still holding her wrist with incredible, desperate gentleness.
"Get out," Adrian ordered his men quietly.
"Sir, you're bleeding—"
"Give us one minute," Adrian said, his voice rising with that absolute authority that allowed no argument. "Doctor, prepare the surgical kit in the adjoining room. Out. All of you."
The men hesitated, looking between Adrian’s blood-stained shirt and Emma’s tear-streaked face, before retreating into the hall and pulling the door shut behind them.
The room went quiet again, save for the rain beating against the thick glass.
Adrian looked down at his blood-soaked hands, then back at Emma.
"Your father died because of my family," Adrian said, his voice cracking slightly. "I thought... I thought I was protecting you by keeping you here. But the truth is, my whole life has been a infection. Everything I touch turns to blood."
Emma reached down, her fingers closing over his scarred knuckles.
"My father didn't stay with you that night because he was a paramedic, Adrian," she whispered. "He stayed because he saw a boy who was about to be swallowed by monsters. He spent the rest of his life hoping that boy would find his way out."
Adrian looked up, his green eyes swimming with unspoken grief.
"I didn't find my way out, Emma," he said softly. "I became the monster."
"Then stop," Emma said.
Adrian blinked. "What?"
"You killed George Kessler's empire tonight," Emma said, her voice growing stronger, firmer. "The federal agents are outside. The silver hawk ring is in the mud. You have your revenge, Adrian. But if you spend the next fifteen years being Julian Vale's son, then George Kessler won't just have killed my father—he'll have killed you, too."
Adrian stared at her, the silence stretching between them until the sound of approaching sirens filled the air outside the windows.
Slowly, painfully, Adrian stood up from the leather chair.
He reached into his desk drawer, pulled out a thick leather-bound ledger—the original record of every bribed official, every illegal shipping lane, and every secret account George Kessler had used for thirty years—and laid it on the desk.
"This goes to the United States Attorney," Adrian said quietly. "All of it."
Emma looked at the ledger, then back at his pale, blood-stained face. "What happens to Vale Freight?"
"It burns," Adrian said. A faint, real smile touched his lips for the first time—small, tired, but remarkably light. "And I go to trial."
"You'll go to prison," Emma said, panic rising in her chest again.
"Maybe for two years. Maybe three," Adrian said, leaning against the desk as the doctor knocked softly on the door. "My lawyers will execute a full cooperation agreement. But when I come out, Emma... the family business will be dead. The monsters will be gone."
He took a step toward her, holding out his hand one last time.
"And for the first time in fifteen years... I'll be free."
Emma looked at his hand.
She didn't take his fingers. Instead, she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his chest again, pressing her cheek gently against his uninjured shoulder, ignoring the dark red blood that stained her own sweater.
"Two minutes," she whispered.
May you like
Adrian closed his eyes, his arms wrapping around her, holding her tightly as the lights of the federal vehicles illuminated the rain outside the window.
"Two minutes," he agreed softly. "And then... the rest of my life."
