Chapter 7
I blinked.
“What?”
“You choose the place, the route, everything.”
He gestured toward Marcus.
“Take Marcus if you want protection without me.”
“No.”
“Take one of the cars without me.”
“No.”
“Call the police if that makes you feel safer.”
I almost laughed again, but there was nothing funny about any of it.
“You want me to call the Chicago police while standing next to Adrian Moretti?”
A faint shadow of the man I remembered touched his face.
“Fair point.”
Noah looked up at me.
“Mom, are we in trouble?”
That ended the argument.
I crouched beside him again.
“I don’t know yet.”
His small face became serious.
“Then shouldn’t we go somewhere safe?”
Sometimes motherhood means discovering your six-year-old has just destroyed the argument you were determined to win.
I closed my eyes briefly.
When I stood, Adrian was waiting.
“My hotel,” I said.
He nodded immediately.
“My rooms.”
Another nod.
“You stay in another room.”
His eyes held mine.
“If that’s what you want.”
“It is.”
We had barely begun walking when my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I stopped.
Adrian noticed.
“What?”
I stared at the screen.
Almost nobody knew this number yet.
My pulse began climbing.
I answered.
“Hello?”
For a moment, there was only breathing.
Then a woman whispered my name.
“Evelyn?”
Every hair on my arms rose.
I knew that voice.
Even after six years.
Even after rain and divorce papers and two children and an entire lifetime spent trying to forget.
“Vanessa?”
Adrian went completely still.
A shaky breath came through the phone.
“Don’t tell Adrian where I am.”
I looked directly at him.
His face hardened.
Then Vanessa whispered four words that changed everything again.
“You deserve the truth.”
The call ended.
Chapter 2: The Woman I Blamed
I stared at the dead phone in my hand while Adrian watched me with an expression that made everyone around us suddenly seem too close.
“What did she say?”
I slid my phone into my coat pocket.
“She said she wants to talk to me.”
“Where?”
“She didn’t say.”
“Did she tell you why she disappeared?”
“No.”
Adrian’s eyes narrowed.
“What else?”
I hesitated.
That was enough for him to know I was hiding something.
He stepped closer.
“Evelyn.”
“She told me not to tell you where she is.”
A muscle moved in his jaw.
Marcus quietly turned away, perhaps deciding that standing between Adrian Moretti and the woman refusing to obey him required more courage than his salary justified.