Chapter 13 - Flight by Night
My hands actually shook as I picked up the paperweight and unfolded the note. The handwriting was slightly smudged in the corner, where a drop of water—or a tear—had fallen onto the ink.
Julian,
I saw the news on the television in your study before you came upstairs. I saw what your stepmother and those men are saying about you to the whole world. I saw them calling you unstable, accusing you of stealing corporate money for us, and dragging your mother’s legacy through the dirt just because you had the mercy to open your door to two freezing children.
When you told me downstairs that you had the voting power to beat them, I was so happy for you. But I realize now that even if you win in that boardroom tomorrow, they will never stop using us to destroy your good name in the press. Every day you keep us here, the world will call Maya and Leo your secret mistakes, and they will call me a gold-digger who ruined a great man's empire.
You gave my children three days of warmth, a doctor who saved my daughter's life, and the feeling that we mattered in a world that treated us like invisible trash. That is more than anyone has ever given me in twenty-four years. I will not repay your kindness by letting my existence cost you the company you built with your own hands.
I took our duffel bag and we used the service freight elevator to leave before the lobby reporters gathered. Please don't look for us. I have a cousin who lives in Milwaukee—we are taking the eight o'clock evening train out of Union Station tonight. We will be safe there, and once we are gone, your PR lawyers can tell the press the truth: that we were just transient guests you helped during a winter storm, and that you have no ties to us.
Thank you for being Leo’s superhero, and for showing me what a real man looks like.
Forever grateful, Clara.
I read the final line three times, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
We are taking the eight o'clock evening train out of Union Station tonight.
I looked at the vintage Rolex on my wrist. It was seven-fifteen PM. Union Station was two miles away across downtown Chicago, but on a Friday evening during a winter storm freeze, traffic on Michigan Avenue and Canal Street would be gridlocked with commuters and snowplows. She had a forty-five-minute head start walking into a freezing city with two four-year-old toddlers and a single canvas bag.
"No," I growled aloud to the empty study, crushing the note in my fist. "Not a chance in hell."
I hit the intercom button on my desk so hard the plastic casing cracked. "Marcus!"
"Boss?" Marcus’s voice came through instantly. "We just secured Victoria’s floor—"
"Forget Victoria!" I roared into the speaker, grabbing my cashmere overcoat from the wardrobe and sprinting toward the private express elevator. "Clara left! She saw the tabloid smear on the news and took the kids to Union Station to catch the eight o'clock train to Milwaukee to protect my reputation! Bring the armored Escalade to the service loading dock right now! We have thirty-five minutes to reach Canal Street before that train pulls out of the platform!"
"I’m on it! We’ll use the police emergency sirens!" Marcus shouted back.
I rode the elevator down to the loading dock at dizzying speed, my mind racing with terrifying images of Clara struggling through snowdrifts with two crying children, trying to buy train tickets with the last few dollars in her pocket while paparazzi and hostile security scouts hunted the transit hubs.
May you like
When the elevator doors parted in the basement garage, Marcus was already behind the wheel of my black, bulletproof Escalade, the engine roaring, two tactical security contractors jumping into the rear seats with their headsets active.
I tore open the passenger door and vaulted inside as Marcus slammed his foot onto the accelerator. The massive vehicle screeched out of the loading bay and burst into the driving snow of the Chicago night, its concealed red-and-blue emergency strobe lights flashing across the frozen pavement as we launched our pursuit across the city.
