Chapter 5 - RUN
Liam slammed the locker door into the man’s arm.
His phone flew across the floor.
“Run.”
I grabbed the document case.
People shouted as we pushed into the crowd.
The stranger recovered quickly.
Too quickly.
Another man appeared near the stairs.
He wore an ordinary brown coat, but his eyes locked onto me immediately.
They knew exactly who they were chasing.
Liam seized my hand.
We ran toward the Great Hall.
My heart pounded so violently that fear for the baby suddenly became worse than fear for myself.
“I can’t keep running.”
“You have to.”
A hand caught the back of Liam’s jacket.
He twisted and drove his elbow backward.
I kept moving.
A woman screamed.
Someone knocked over a suitcase.
Then Gabriel appeared from nowhere.
He struck the pursuing man once and shoved him against a column.
“East exit.”
We ran.
A black SUV stopped at the curb.
Gabriel opened the rear door.
“Get in.”
I hesitated only a second.
Inside the SUV, a woman in a dark blazer handed me a bottle of water.
“My name is Sofia Alvarez.”
“Where are we going?”
“Somewhere secure.”
“No hospitals.”
She studied my face.
“I did not say hospital.”
Gabriel climbed into the front seat.
Liam got in beside me.
As the SUV pulled into traffic, my abdomen cramped.
I doubled over.
Liam’s hand landed on my shoulder.
“Liz?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
Another cramp came.
Panic swallowed me.
“No.”
Sofia immediately turned around.
“How far along?”
“About six weeks.”
“Any bleeding?”
“Not yet.”
“Any previous pregnancy?”
“No.”
She pressed two fingers to my wrist.
“I’m a physician.”
Of course she was.
Apparently Alessandro Vitali traveled with every possible professional except a magician.
“Stress can cause cramping.”
“What if something is wrong?”
“We’ll check.”
“I said no hospital.”
“And I heard you.”
Twenty minutes later, we entered the underground garage of a private medical building near Lake Michigan.
The clinic occupied the top floor.
There were no waiting-room patients.
No reception desk full of strangers.
Only Sofia, a technician, Liam, Gabriel, and me.
I lay on an examination table staring at the ceiling while the ultrasound machine hummed beside me.
I had spent years studying medicine.
I knew six weeks was early.
I knew what could go wrong.
I knew every awful possibility.
Then the technician turned the monitor.
A tiny flicker appeared.
“There.”
I started crying.
I hated that I started crying.
Sofia pointed gently.
“That is cardiac activity.”
Liam looked away and rubbed his face.
For one moment, the threats and dead parents and billionaire families disappeared.
There was only that tiny pulse.
My baby was alive.
Then the clinic door opened.
Every security guard in the hallway straightened.
I knew who had arrived before I saw him.
Alessandro stepped inside.
He wore a black overcoat over a dark suit.
His eyes found mine first.
Then they moved to the ultrasound screen.
The room became unbearably silent.
His gaze dropped to my stomach.
Then to my face.
“Emma.”
I could not speak.
He looked at the monitor again.
Something changed in his expression.
Shock.
Calculation.
Fear.
Then understanding.
“How many weeks?”
Nobody answered.
Alessandro walked closer.
His voice became quieter.
“How many weeks?”
“Six.”
His jaw tightened.
He looked at me as if the entire room had disappeared.
“Is the child mine?”
I had imagined this moment a hundred times in the last three hours.
I had imagined lying.
I had imagined denying everything.
I had imagined being brave.
Instead, I whispered one word.
“Yes.”
The billionaire who never seemed surprised by anything went perfectly still.
May you like
Then he asked the question I had feared even more.
“Who is Elizabeth?”
