My Future Father-In-Law Tried To Erase My Secret Triplets — So I Erased His Entire Empire

Part 1

The late autumn wind whipping through Central Park carried the scent of roasted almonds and dead leaves.

It was a crisp, idyllic Sunday afternoon in New York City, and I absolutely hated every single second of it.

My world consisted of shadows, shipping containers at the port, and whispered threats in dimly lit rooms.

Yet here I was, wearing a bespoke charcoal suit, a loaded compact weapon holstered discreetly against my ribs.

I was walking arm in arm with Megan Lawson.

Megan, the heiress to the Lawson real estate fortune, was nothing more than a strategic alliance for my family’s syndicate.

She was undeniably beautiful, but her pedigree was meant to whitewash a decade of my family’s dark operations.

As she chatted endlessly about whether the floral arrangements for our upcoming wedding should be white orchids or imported peonies, my mind was miles away.

I was calculating the fallout of a hijacked weapons shipment overseen by my brutal rival, Tyler Peterson.

Megan tugged gently at my arm, her perfectly manicured nails digging into the fine wool of my sleeve, complaining that getting me to focus was like pulling teeth.

I murmured my agreement, my deep voice carrying a gravelly edge that commanded authority even when I was completely disinterested.

I let my gaze drift over the crowd near the terrace, taking in the tourists snapping photos and couples walking golden retrievers.

It was a mundane, saccharine reality I had never truly belonged to.

And then, the world simply stopped spinning.

The ambient noise of the park, the street musicians, the chatter of the crowd, and Megan’s complaints all faded into a dull, rushing static in my ears.

Standing exactly fifty yards away, struggling to maneuver a massive triple stroller over a cracked paving stone, was Heather Cole.

Heather was the only woman I had ever truly loved.

She was the woman I had systematically, brutally destroyed three and a half years ago.

She looked different, yet agonizingly the same, her chestnut hair pulled up into a messy bun, escaping in wisps around her neck.

She wore a faded olive utility jacket and jeans, a far cry from the diamonds and silk Megan was currently draped in.

Heather looked exhausted, her shoulders tense as she finally bumped the heavy stroller over the obstacle.

My chest seized so violently that I stopped walking abruptly, causing Megan to stumble beside me.

Megan demanded to know what was wrong, looking up at my suddenly pale face.

I didn’t answer, simply because I couldn’t breathe.

My dark, storm-gray eyes were locked completely on that stroller.

As Heather walked closer, oblivious to my presence in the dense crowd, the occupants of the stroller came into full view.

Three toddlers.

Boys.

They couldn’t have been more than two and a half years old.

One was fast asleep, his head tipped sideways.

The second was aggressively shaking a plastic toy car, babbling loudly.

The third, sitting in the middle seat, was perfectly still, clutching a small plush bear.

I felt a cold sweat break out across the back of my neck.

Even from this distance, the genetics were an undeniable, violent punch to the gut.

They had my jawline, the exact slope of my brow.

And as the middle boy turned his head to look at a passing dog, I saw them.

Storm-gray eyes.

My eyes.

Three of them.

A memory flashed behind my eyes like a physical blow.

It was a rainy night in my heavily guarded penthouse, three and a half years ago.

I had just inherited the syndicate after my father was gunned down in the street.

I knew my enemies would come for my heart first, and my heart was Heather, a first-grade teacher who thought I was just a wealthy venture capitalist.

To save her life, I had to make her leave.

I brought another woman to our bed, staged a cruel scene, and told Heather she meant nothing to me.

I remembered her sobbing, the sound of her suitcase wheels on the hardwood, the way my soul had died the moment the door clicked shut behind her.

I had done it to protect her from the monsters in my world.

But this?

Suddenly, the boy in the middle pointed a chubby finger straight ahead and yelled for his mother to look at a dog.

Heather looked up to follow her son’s gaze.

Her eyes swept across the crowd and crashed directly into mine.

Time completely froze.

I saw the exact moment the blood drained from her face.

Her hazel eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated terror.

She didn’t look at me with the anger of a scorned ex-girlfriend.

She looked at me with the primal panic of a hunted animal.

I breathed her name, stepping forward and dropping Megan’s arm as if it were on fire.

Heather’s reaction was instantaneous and explosive.

She didn’t hesitate for a single second.

She gripped the handles of the heavy stroller, spun it around with a frantic burst of adrenaline, and began to run.

She shoved her way through a group of tourists, her head down, sprinting toward the nearest exit.

Megan’s sharp, indignant voice sliced through my trance, demanding to know where I was going and who that woman was.

I gritted my teeth, my fists clenching at my sides.

I wanted to tear through the park, rip the stroller from her hands, and demand answers.

Triplets.

My sons.

Walking around in the open.

But I was Brian Sullivan.

I had eyes on me constantly.

If I chased a fleeing woman and three children through Central Park while my high-profile fiancée threw a tantrum, it would be on page six by evening.

And worse, if the Peterson family had tails on me, I would be leading them right to my vulnerable children.

I lied to Megan, my voice dropping an octave, dead and cold, claiming I thought I saw someone who owed me money.

I stared at the spot where Heather had vanished into the crowd, a dangerous, dark fire igniting in my veins.

She had hidden my blood.

She had run with my heirs.

I pulled my phone from my pocket, the cold certainty settling in my chest that by nightfall, I would tear this city apart to find them.

I called Dan Robinson, my syndicate’s chief intelligence officer and cleaner.

I told him I needed a name, and I needed it yesterday.

I explained what I had seen in the park, telling him I would stake my life on the fact that those boys were mine.

Dan warned me that if she had three of my kids, someone would have noticed, but I knew she had intentionally hidden them from me.

She knew my real identity, having figured it out after she left.

I ordered Dan to dig into every Jane Doe admission in the tri-state area around eight months after she vanished.

I told him to bribe doctors, hack off-the-books delivery records, and do whatever it took to find me where she was sleeping tonight.

It took exactly four hours.

By eight o’clock that evening, Dan placed a manila folder on my desk, revealing she had gone completely off the grid using a private midwife in upstate New York.

She was currently living in a duplex in Montclair, New Jersey, working remotely to avoid background checks.

I stared at a surveillance photo of the duplex, noting a small tricycle sitting on the front porch.

I ordered my car prepared, ignoring Dan’s warnings that she might be spooked enough to call the cops.

I was going alone.

An hour later, I parked two blocks away from the Montclair address under the cover of the brisk autumn night.

The neighborhood was dead quiet, suburbanites fast asleep in their beds.

I approached the duplex, noticing a soft, warm glow emanating from a second-story window.

I didn’t bother knocking.

I produced a set of titanium picks from my coat pocket and bypassed the front door’s deadbolt in under ten seconds.

I slipped inside, closing the door silently behind me.

The house smelled like baby powder, lavender, and the faint scent of vanilla.

It was Heather’s signature scent.

I walked through the living room, stepping over scattered toy bricks and a plush wolf.

My heart pounded against my ribs with a force I hadn’t felt since my first firefight.

I crept up the carpeted stairs, drawn to the soft glow coming from a room at the end of the hall.

I pushed open the door to the dimly lit nursery, the silence broken only by my hammering heart as I stared at three identical toddlers sleeping in the shadows.