Chapter 254: He would bring her home
When he found out which, he would find out he was not going to be reasonable about it. He had already decided that. There would be no courtroom version of this, no measured response, no sitting across a table and being civil.
Whoever had put his wife in the state she was in right now, whoever had taken his daughter out of this world and hidden her somewhere, was going to face a version of Julian Vale that he had never had reason to show anyone before.
He would find Justina. He would bring her home. And then.
Amara shifted in her sleep. A small sound, almost nothing, and her grip on his shirt tightened for just a second before her breathing evened out again.
Julian looked down at her.
Her face in sleep was different from her face awake. The composure that she wore like a second skin, all of it gone. Just her. Just the woman underneath all the strategy and the strength and the armour, trembling even now in her sleep from something she couldn’t fight her way out of.
He had to protect her.
Not just from Sebastian or Kalain or whatever was coming from his family. From this. From the weight of it. He needed her steady, not for the company, not for any of that, but for herself. For the babies down the hall. For the morning that was going to come and ask her to get up and keep going.
His mother.
The thought surfaced quietly.
Madam Margaret Vale was not a soft woman. She had never been soft, not when his father was alive, not after, not once in all the years Julian had watched her navigate a family that treated kindness as weakness and sentiment as a liability.
She was sharp and patient, and she had survived things that would have finished most people. Putting her in charge of the company while he handled this, it was the only option that made sense. She could hold it. She was one of the few people he trusted without condition.
But his family would move against her the moment they saw the opening.
They always moved.
He pressed his lips together. Looked up at the ceiling. The room was dark except for the thin line of light beneath the door and the faint glow of the phone screen going dark again on the nightstand.
He thought about baby Justina Amara.
He didn’t let himself do it often. It was the kind of thought that had edges, holding it too long made it harder to function, and he needed to function. But tonight, with Amara asleep against him and the house finally quiet, he let himself think about her. His daughter.
The one he hadn’t held long enough. The one who was out there somewhere, tonight, in a place he didn’t know, with people he hadn’t chosen.
I’m coming, he thought. I’m coming, and I’m bringing you home.
He looked down at Amara one more time.
Then he reached slowly for his phone, careful not to wake her, and opened a message thread with no name. Just a number. He typed four words.
Have news. Call me. He put the phone face down on his chest and closed his eyes. He was not going to sleep. Not really. But he could rest. And in the morning, everything would begin again.
Morning came without permission.
The kind that doesn’t wait for you to be ready, grey light pushing through the curtains, birds somewhere outside doing their business, the house slowly waking up around two people who hadn’t really slept.
Julian was up first.
He sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, elbows on his knees, looking at the floor. Then he got up quietly and dressed, shirt, trousers, shoes, moving carefully so as not to disturb her. He glanced at Amara every few seconds, the way you check on something fragile.
She was still in the same position. Curled slightly on her side, facing where he had been. Her eyes closed, but the skin beneath them was dark and heavy.
He sat beside her and touched her shoulder gently.
"Amara."
Nothing.
"Baby." A little firmer. "It’s morning."
She stirred. Her eyes opened slowly, and she found him. Then, he watched it happen, the night came back to her. All of it. He could see it move across her face like weather. The eyes that had been soft for just one unguarded second went somewhere else.
She blinked at him. Said nothing.
"There’s news," Julian said carefully. "They’ve found the third mother. I can go meet her this morning."
Amara looked at him.
That same expression from last night, the soft blank one, the one that scared him more than tears did.
"Do you want to come with me?" He kept his voice even. "You can. I want you to, if you..."
But even as he said it, he was looking at her. The way she was lying there, not quite present, her body in the bed, but something essential still missing from behind her eyes.
He stopped.
"It’s okay," he said quietly. He leaned down and pressed his lips to her forehead and held them there for a second, longer than necessary, long enough to mean something. "Just rest. I will be back soon. I will bring news, alright?"
Amara blinked slowly.
He straightened up and looked at her for one more moment. Then he walked to the door, paused, and turned back.
"I’m coming back," he said. Not to remind her. Just because he needed her to hear it.
Downstairs, he found the older housemaid already in the kitchen and James by the front sitting room, arms folded, reading something on his phone. James looked up the moment Julian appeared and read his face in about two seconds, the way James always did.
"How is she?" James asked.
"Not good." Julian kept his voice low. "I need you to stay close to her today. Both of you." He looked at the maid briefly. "Get her to eat something. Anything. She won’t want to, but try." He turned back to James. "Don’t leave her alone for long. And if anything... anything at all...changes, you call me immediately."
James nodded once. No questions. Julian picked up his keys.
