I had exactly four minutes before my husband’s private elevator pinged.
My name is Harper Ellison, I’m six months pregnant, and I was about to erase my entire existence. The heavy mahogany doors of our Manhattan penthouse felt like the walls of a prison I had finally learned how to break. My hands trembled as I hit ‘Enter’ on my encrypted laptop, watching the progress bar leap to one hundred percent. The transfer was complete. Every offshore account, every fraudulent shell company Lucas had used to launder money, was now securely sitting in an anonymous inbox at the FBI.
I grabbed the single duffel bag by my feet. It contained nothing bought with his money—just my old architecture sketchbooks, my passport, and the clothes on my back. The sprawling five-thousand-square-foot apartment behind me was stripped bare of my presence. My dresses were gone, my toiletries vanished, my customized drafting tables dismantled. To the naked eye, it looked as if Lucas Ellison had always lived alone.
“Come on, come on,” I whispered, pressing my hand against my swollen belly. The baby kicked, a tiny flutter of rebellion.
My phone buzzed. A text from Rowan, the extraction driver. He’s in the lobby. Move.
Lucas was early. He wasn’t supposed to leave his mistress Brooke’s bed until two in the morning. If he caught me now, I wouldn’t just lose my freedom; I’d lose my child. Lucas was a man who owned people, and he would never let a piece of his property walk out the front door.
I bolted toward the service stairwell just as the faint, terrifying chime of the private elevator echoed through the foyer. I slipped through the heavy fire door, easing it shut until it clicked softly. Through the narrow slit of the peephole, I watched the elevator doors slide open. Lucas stepped out, adjusting his expensive tie, a smirk still plastered on his arrogant face.
Then, he stopped. He looked at the barren hallway, the missing console table, the sheer emptiness of his flawless world. He shouted my name, the sound feral and dangerous.
I turned and ran down the concrete stairs, but my foot caught on the edge of a step. I pitched forward into the darkness, gasping as I desperately threw my hands out to protect my baby.
