"By the time my husband came home on Christmas morning, my wedding ring was lying beneath the tree, my hospital bag was gone, and the nursery door was standing wide open. Roman had spent years making half of Chicago afraid of him—but on Christmas Eve, while he was holding another woman downtown, his eight-and-a-half-months-pregnant wife finally became the one person he could no longer control. / Chapter 2 / 10

Chapter 2 - The DepartureThe light from the phone screen illuminated the quiet nursery, casting long shadows across the white crib and the custom rocking chair we had picked out together just months ago. The photo had been sent from an anonymous burner account on Instagram—a direct message with no caption, just a clear, high-resolution shot of Roman standing outside a luxury high-rise on Michigan Avenue, his arm wrapped tightly around Claire Bennett in a floor-length red evening gown.

They looked like a cinematic couple celebrating a holiday romance.

And I looked like a fool sitting three miles away in a gated fortress, waiting for a man who had promised to be home by midnight.

Margaret stood in the doorway, her hands clasped tightly over her apron. Her eyes darted from my face to the diamond ring resting in the palm of my hand.

“Mrs. Carter… Savannah, honey, let me get you a coat. Let me call someone,” Margaret murmured, her voice trembling.

“Who would you call, Margaret?” I asked, my voice terrifyingly steady. Even to my own ears, I sounded like a stranger. The hormonal panic and heartbreak I had felt just ten minutes ago had burned away, replaced by an absolute, freezing clarity. “Roman controls the security staff, the drivers, the accounts. If I walk out the front door right now, half the men at the gate report directly to him.”

“Then don’t go through the front gate,” Margaret said, stepping closer and dropping her voice to a fierce whisper. She reached out and gripped my shoulder. “My nephew Marcus is parked down the service lane behind the greenhouse. He’s been bringing in the catering supplies. He doesn't answer to Roman. He answers to me. And he hates bullies.”

I looked at the elderly housekeeper who had watched me shrink into a docile shadow over the past five years of marriage. She wasn't just offering sympathy; she was handing me an escape route.

“Get my hospital bag,” I said softly.

Within twenty minutes, I had changed out of my comfortable sweater into a dark wool coat, slipped my leather boots over my swollen feet, and left my heavy gold-and-diamond wedding band sitting right in the exact center of the beautifully decorated Christmas tree skirt in the formal parlor. Let him unwrap that present when he finally bothered to stumble home.

Marcus’s beat-up Ford pickup truck was idling quietly behind the frozen hedges of the greenhouse. When I climbed into the passenger seat, wincing slightly as my daughter gave a sharp kick against my ribs, Marcus gave me a hard, respectful nod.

“Where to, Mrs. Carter?” he asked, shifting the truck into gear.

“Not to a hotel, and not to my parents,” I said, looking out the frost-covered window as the iron gates of the estate slid past in the darkness. “Take me straight to Vance & Sterling Forensic Accounting downtown. Tell the night security guard that Marcus sent me to see Marcus Vance.”