Chapter 1 - The Four in the Mirror.
The Aurelia Grand had been polished until even the white marble seemed expensive enough to breathe.
Adrian Vale stood before a row of gold faucets in the private restroom, straightening the silver tie against his all-white three-piece suit.
The launch gala outside was supposed to celebrate his promotion to chief executive of Vale Meridian Hotels.
Instead, he was hiding for sixty seconds from investors, photographers, and his mother, Victoria, who had planned every smile he was expected to wear.
The black smartphone in his pocket had not stopped vibrating all evening.
He ignored it and stared at his own reflection, at the slicked-back dark hair and the faint tattoos climbing above his collar.
Then the restroom door opened.
Four little boys stepped inside in a perfect row.
They were perhaps five years old, each dressed in the same light gray suit and narrow tie, each with neatly combed light brown hair.
Adrian turned from the sink and forgot how to move.
The boys had his chin.
They had the same deep-set eyes he saw in childhood photographs of himself.
Even the oldest-looking one tilted his head exactly the way Adrian did when confused.
For one absurd second, Adrian wondered whether the mirrors had fractured his image into smaller copies.
He leaned down slightly.
"Who... who are you boys?"
The boy in front pointed proudly at himself, then at his brothers.
"We're quadruplets."
He smiled with the calm confidence of a child stating the weather.
"Our mom works here."
Adrian's mouth went dry.
A second boy studied the tattoo at his neck.
"You have the same eyes as Theo when he's mad."
The smallest boy immediately protested.
"Theo is always mad."
The four of them giggled.
Adrian did not.
The door opened again.
Celeste Rowan appeared in the doorway, glittering in a champagne-colored evening gown, one hand still holding the clutch she had carried through the gala.
She had come looking for her fiancé after noticing he had vanished from the ballroom.
Her smile died before she could speak.
Her gaze moved from Adrian to the boys and then back again.
She covered her mouth.
"They... they look just like you."
The room seemed to narrow around Adrian.
He reached for his black smartphone so quickly that it nearly slipped from his hand.
Celeste stepped closer.
"Adrian, who are they?"
"I don't know."
That answer frightened him more than any other answer could have.
He called Malcolm Reed, the hotel's head of security.
Malcolm answered on the first ring.
"Sir?"
Adrian kept his eyes on the four boys.
"Lock the staff exits."
Celeste's face changed.
"Adrian."
He raised a finger without looking at her.
"No employee leaves this building until I know who their mother is."
One of the boys frowned.
"Mom doesn't like locked doors."
Adrian felt a chill crawl under his collar.
"What's your mother's name?"
The first boy hesitated, suddenly less cheerful.
Before he could answer, a woman's voice echoed from the corridor.
"Noah? Eli? Mason? Theo?"
Every boy turned toward the door.
Their faces lit up.
"Mom!"
Adrian rose slowly.
Footsteps approached at a run.
A woman in a black hotel uniform appeared in the doorway and froze so hard that her employee badge swung against her chest.
Her name tag read MARA BENNETT.
Adrian knew that name.
He had spent six years trying not to say it.
Mara looked at his face, then at the phone in his hand, and every trace of color vanished from hers.
She stepped in front of the four boys like a shield.
"Don't touch them."
Adrian stared at the woman he had once planned to marry in secret.
"Mara?"
May you like
Her eyes filled with something colder than anger.
"You already paid enough to make us disappear once."
