Alpha's Abandoned Daughter is the Secret Heiress novel Chapter 421

Chapter 421: Celine at the Baby Store

Chapter 421: Celine at the Baby Store

(Amelia’s POV)

The hatred in Lance’s eyes was almost physical.

It radiated off him in waves – hot, furious, desperate. If looks could kill, I’d have been ash on the floor.

But he couldn’t move.

Zoey had made sure of that. Hit after hit, relentless and shaking and absolutely real. His body had simply

given out. He lay crumpled against the wall, arms slack, chest barely rising.

I looked down at him.

“Relax,” I said. “You’re not going anywhere.”

He made a sound in his throat. Not words. Something uglier than words.

“Griffin will find you eventually,” I continued, keeping my voice pleasant. “Maybe. If he’s good enough.” I tilted my head. “But I’d guess he’s barely keeping his own head above water right now. So you might be

waiting a while.”

Lance’s jaw worked.

Nothing came out.

I straightened up, rolled my shoulder once, and kicked him cleanly in the ribs.

Not hard enough to break anything. Just hard enough to make a point.

He folded tighter against the wall, a choked grunt escaping through his teeth.

I turned and walked out of the room.

Silas was waiting just outside the door, her posture relaxed but her eyes sharp as always.

“Zoey settled?” I asked.

“She’s in the next room. Berry’s with her.”

I nodded. Good.

“What about Zane Jenkins?” I asked. “Since the story about Zoey and Wayne broke – has he made any

moves?”

Silas’s expression didn’t change, but something in her eyes sharpened slightly.

“His people visited Southgate Detention Center earlier tonight,” she said. “We don’t have the specifics yet,

1/6

< Chapter 421 Celine at the Baby Store Purpose unknown.”

I felt my brow pull together.

Southgate Detention Center.

The name sat in my mind, turning over slowly.

Celine had used a fugitive once, hired someone with nothing to lose to make my life difficult. It wasn’t a complicated playbook, but it had worked once. If Zane was falling back on the same logic-

There was a professional killer in that facility. Someone who’d been connected to operations I’d quietly dismantled months ago. Someone with the right skill set and zero legal protections left.

But even as I thought it, something felt off.

Zane wasn’t sloppy. He wasn’t the type to reach for the obvious move. He was patient. Calculated. The kind of man who let other people make noise while he quietly repositioned.

Which meant whatever he was doing at that detention center, it probably wasn’t what it looked like on the

surface.

The real question was what his actual target was.

Starlight Entertainment? Stone Botanicals? Umbra Analytics?

All three were exposed right now in different ways. All three had pressure points.

“Keep watching,” I said. “I want everything – visitors, paperwork requests, any communication that goes in or out of that facility connected to his people.”

Silas nodded once. “Understood.”

“Dig deep,” I added. “Don’t stop at the surface.”

She was already moving before I finished the sentence.

Zoey was quieter on the drive back.

Not the frozen, hollow quiet from before. This was different. Softer. Like something had been released

that had been coiled tight for a very long time.

She sat in the passenger seat with her hands folded in her lap, staring at the city lights sliding past the

window.

After about ten minutes, she turned her head and looked at me.

“Thank you,” she said.

Her voice was steady. Genuinely steady – not performed, not held together by force.

“I thought about it,” she continued. “While I was in there. I kept thinking – why should I be the one who

Chapter 421–Celine at the Baby Stote

disappears?” Her jaw set. “The dirty ones were never me. It was always them. The predators. The ones

who took and took and never once thought about what they were destroying.”

I kept my eyes on the road.

“Took you long enough to figure that out,” I said.

She laughed.

It was a real laugh- short and a little rough, but real.

“If I ever need to go back and hit him again,” she said, “will you actually take me?”

“Said I would, didn’t I?”

She was quiet for a moment.

“I want to stay close to you,” she said finally. “I know that probably sounds strange, since we’ve barely

known each other –”

“I was going to sign you to Starlight Entertainment anyway,” I said.

She blinked. “What?”

“You’ve got the right instincts. The contract dispute with your current agency – I’ll handle it.” I glanced at

her briefly. “You just focus on not falling apart again.”

She stared at me for a long moment.

Then she pressed her lips together and looked back out the window.

“Okay,” she said softly. “Okay.”

I dropped Zoey off with Berry just before ten–thirty.

Berry had already set up a clean room, warm food, the works. She gave me a look over Zoey’s shoulder that said *I’ve got this* without a single word.

I got back in the car and checked my phone.

One message from Caleb.

Four words: *See you on the other side.*

I stared at it for a second.

Then I locked the screen and put the phone face–down on the passenger seat.

His flight had taken off. That chapter was closed.

I had a different problem now – I needed gifts.

Tonight, I was meeting Theodore’s friends. Showing up empty–handed wasn’t an option, but picking gifts

Chapter 421 Celine at the Baby Stare

for people I barely knew was genuinely one of my least favorite activities. I had no patience for it.

I pulled up Natasha’s contact and called.

She picked up on the third ring.

“Mm?” Her voice was thick with sleep, soft at the edges.

“It’s Amelia. Are you busy?”

A pause. The sound of sheets rustling.

“…No,” she said, sounding more awake already. “What do you need?”

“I need someone to help me pick gifts. Theodore’s friends. I’m meeting them tonight and I have no idea what to get any of them.”

There was a beat of silence.

Then the sleepiness completely vanished from her voice.

“Give me thirty minutes,” she said.

She made it in twenty–five.

Red coat, black skirt, hair done, heels on. She looked like she’d been awake for hours.

She climbed into the car and immediately looked me over.

“You look good,” she said approvingly, scanning my outfit. “Simple but sharp. Very you.”

“You look like you planned this outfit three days ago.”

She grinned. “I always have an emergency going–out look ready.” She buckled her seatbelt. “Okay.

Theodore’s friends. How many, and what do I need to know about them?”

I gave her the basics on the drive over.

By the time we reached the mall, she had already declared, with complete confidence, that she had it

handled.

I believed her.

We ate first.

There was a steakhouse on the third floor with good cuts and better soup, and neither of us had eaten

properly since afternoon. We got a table, ordered, and settled in.

Natasha talked with her hands. She had opinions about everything – the mall layout, the other diners, the

soup temperature – and she delivered all of them with cheerful authority.

Chapter 421 Celine at the Baby Store

At some point she glanced at my plate.

Then she looked at hers.

Then back at mine.

“You finished everything,” she said.

“I don’t like wasting food.”

She paused.

Something shifted in her expression – not pity, not surprise exactly. Just a quiet, genuine kind of

recognition.

She didn’t say anything else about it.

But I noticed her finish her own plate more carefully after that.

After dinner, Natasha shifted into what I could only describe as full mission mode.

She moved through the mall with purpose, pulling me from one shop to the next, asking sharp questions and dismissing options with decisive efficiency. She knew what worked, what was too showy, what hit the right note between thoughtful and unpretentious.

An hour and a half later, every gift was chosen, wrapped, and bagged.

I was genuinely impressed.

“You’re good at this,” I said.

She looked pleased in a way she was trying not to show. “I’ve had a lot of practice. Big family.”

We headed toward the exit, bags in hand, the late–night crowd thinning out around us.

I was already thinking about the drive back, running through logistics in my head, when something in my peripheral vision snagged my attention.

A figure. Moving through the crowd near the far end of the corridor.

Something about the posture. The way she held her shoulders.

I stopped walking.

Natasha stopped a half–step later, following my gaze.

She squinted.

Then her expression shifted – first confused, then genuinely startled.

She leaned close and dropped her voice.

“Is that Celine?” she said. “What is she doing at a baby store?”

Chapter 422, Is Celme Pregnant?

+79 Poims

Chapter 422: Is Celine Pregnant?

Chapter 422: Is Celine Pregnant?

(Amelia’s POV)

I stopped walking.

My eyes tracked the figure moving through the crowd near the far end of the corridor.

That posture. Those shoulders. The way she moved like she owned every room she walked into – even

when she clearly didn’t.

Celine.

Natasha’s voice was low beside me. “What is she doing at a baby store?”

I watched Celine linger near the entrance of the shop, a small bag clutched in one hand.

*What indeed.*

My mind started turning it over quietly. Celine at a baby store wasn’t something that happened by

accident. She didn’t browse. She didn’t wander. Everything she did was calculated.

Natasha leaned closer, dropping her voice even further. “Okay, so – one of my girls mentioned recently that

Celine’s been tangled up with Lucas Lloyd. You don’t think she’s actually…”

She didn’t finish the sentence.

She didn’t need to.

I thought about it for a moment.

Celine had always considered herself above everyone else. She’d spent years cultivating that image – polished, refined, too good for ordinary people. Lucas Lloyd was many things, but he wasn’t the kind of man Celine would ever genuinely want.

If there had been anything between them, it was a transaction. A convenience. Celine using him for

something.

She would never willingly carry Lucas Lloyd’s child.

“It’s not Lucas,” I said quietly.

Natasha blinked. “Then who-”

“Griffin.”

A beat of silence.

Natasha’s expression shifted slowly from confusion to something closer to disbelief.

Chapter 422 is Celine Pregnant?

Before she could respond, the baby store’s door swung open.

Celine stepped out.

She was looking down at her bag, adjusting the handles and then she looked up.

Her eyes found mine instantly.

Her entire body went still.

For just a second – barely half a breath her free hand moved. It pressed flat against her stomach, instinctive and unthinking.

Then she caught herself and dropped it immediately, like she could pretend it hadn’t happened.

But we’d both seen it.

Natasha sucked in a sharp breath beside me.

Celine’s expression had gone from still to carefully controlled, but her eyes gave her away. There was

something frantic moving behind them.

Natasha didn’t waste any time.

“Is it Lucas’s?” she asked, her voice carrying clearly across the corridor. “Because he’s already fled the

country, you know. Very heroic of him, leaving you to handle things alone.”

Celine didn’t even look at her.

Her gaze was fixed entirely on me. Hard and burning and full of something that had been building for a long time.

Natasha wasn’t deterred.

“You know,” she continued, almost conversationally, “I always thought part of your problem was that you

never actually made it into the Crimson family’s circle. Not really. You were always on the outside looking

in.” She tilted her head. “That kind of thing twists a person.”

The words landed.

I watched Celine’s jaw tighten.

She’d spent years believing she was exceptional. Talented, beautiful, destined for something greater than what she’d been given. And yet the Crimson family had never once looked at her the way she wanted them

1. to. Not with respect. Not with recognition.

That wound had never closed.

Natasha had just pressed directly on it.

I let the silence stretch for a moment before I spoke.

Chapter 422. 16 Celme 19 sanant’s

“Celine.” I kept my tone light, almost friendly. “When did you start working for Griffin Drake?”

Her eyes sharpened.

“And where’s Adrian?” I added. “I haven’t seen much of him lately.”

Something flickered across her face at the mention of Adrian. Her expression darkened further.

“Did you plan what happened at Night City?” she asked. Her voice was controlled, but only barely.

“No,” I said simply.

She stared at me.

“Those guests were poisoned by the drug Griffin gave you,” I continued, keeping my voice calm. “The one that was meant for me. Somewhere along the way, it ended up in the wrong place.” I paused. “That’s not

my doing. That’s yours.”

I watched her process that.

She still couldn’t figure out how it had happened. I could see it in her face – the frustration, the confusion,

the desperate attempt to find the angle she’d missed.

“The Drake family has other assets,” she said finally, pulling herself upright. “You haven’t won anything.”

“I know,” I agreed pleasantly. “That’s why I’ll keep going.” I met her eyes. “One by one. Including that club you’re managing.” I let a beat pass. “I know what’s being kept there, Celine.”

The color drained from her face.

Her eyes went wide for just a fraction of a second – raw, unguarded fear – before she forced her expression

back under control.

She didn’t know how much I knew.

That uncertainty was its own kind of weapon.

I let my gaze drop, briefly, to her stomach.

“You were drugged that night,” I said. “And now you’re buying things at a baby store.” I looked back up at her face. “Griffin’s child. And you’re planning to use it to secure your place beside him.”

The silence that followed was absolute.

Natasha made a small, stunned sound beside me.

Celine stared at me for a long moment.

Then something in her expression shifted. The pretense fell away. She stopped trying to hide it.

“Yes,” she said. Her voice was flat and cold and certain. “And when I’m standing next to Griffin, I will make your life absolutely miserable.”

I looked at her.