Chapter 3 - The Car That Followed
I left through the hotel kitchen.
Not because Dominic told me to run. Because I no longer knew which part of his world was dangerous and which part was him trying to control me.
A dishwasher named Luis recognized me and pointed toward a service exit. “Your car is out front, Mrs. Moretti.”
“I know. I need another door.”
He looked at my face, then at my stomach. “This way.”
Five minutes later, I was in the back seat of a rideshare, wrapped in a borrowed black catering coat over my navy gown.
The driver glanced at me in the mirror. “Rough wedding?”
“Something like that.”
I gave him the address of my obstetrician’s private clinic instead of home.
As we pulled away, I looked back once. The hotel entrance had become a gold rectangle in the rain, full of security, valets, and people who had spent the evening admiring my marriage. Somewhere above them, my ring was still sitting on a table beside papers I had signed with a shaking hand. I wondered how many guests would go home and tell the story as gossip instead of understanding that I had just walked away from the only life I had known for six years.
Halfway there, headlights stayed behind us through three turns.
A black SUV.
My phone rang.
Dominic.
I rejected it.
It rang again.
I rejected it again.
Then a text came through.
AVA, PICK UP. NOW.
The SUV moved closer.
“Can you turn here?” I asked the driver.
“That’s not the route.”
“Please.”
He turned.
The SUV turned too.
My pulse climbed. “Drive to the nearest police station.”
The driver looked back. “Ma’am, are you in trouble?”
“Yes.”
Before he could answer, a second vehicle pulled up beside us. My whole body went cold.
The passenger window lowered.
Marco, Dominic’s security chief, shouted, “Ava! Get down!”
The first SUV accelerated.
My driver screamed and swerved.
Metal slammed against metal. The car spun halfway across the intersection before stopping against the curb.
I threw both arms around my stomach.
“Baby, baby, please.”
Marco’s SUV blocked the other vehicle. Two men jumped out of the pursuing car and ran into an alley.
Marco reached my door and pulled it open.
“Are you hurt?”
“I don’t know.”
He looked at the driver. “Call an ambulance.”
Then he crouched beside me and said, “Mrs. Moretti, your husband did not send that car.”
“I figured that out.”
“No. You don’t understand.” His face was pale. “The license plate belongs to one of our own vehicles.”
I stared at him.
May you like
Marco lowered his voice.
“Someone in Dominic’s house just tried to take you.”
