Chapter 3

The penthouse smelled like Julian's cologne. Sandalwood and bergamot. It used to make me feel safe. Now it made my stomach turn—though that might have been the morning sickness.

Maya waited in the car downstairs, engine running, phone on speaker.

"You have forty minutes," she said through my earpiece. "His calendar shows a board meeting until five. Move fast."

I moved through the apartment like a ghost haunting her own life.

The pregnancy test was gone from the pillow. In its place was a single red rose and a note in Julian's handwriting.

Come home, my love. This changes everything. —J

I picked up the note. I studied his handwriting—the confident slant, the sharp serifs. The handwriting of a man who had never doubted his right to anything.

I crumpled it and dropped it on the floor.

The closet was a cathedral of Italian wool and hand-stitched leather. His side was three times the size of mine. I knelt beside the built-in safe, half-hidden behind a rack of ties that cost more than monthly rent in most American cities.

Our wedding date. 09-14-19.

The lock clicked open.

Inside: stacks of cash. A Rolex he never wore. Two passports—his real one and one under a different name. I filed that detail away for later.

And there, beneath everything, a leather folder.

The Ashford Foundation charter. My name was on page four. Seraphina Ashford, Co-Trustee.

Julian had tried to remove me six months ago. The amendment was in the folder too—unsigned. He needed my signature to strip my authority, and he'd been waiting for the "right moment" to trick me into signing.

I took the charter. I took photos of the unsigned amendment. I took a photo of the fake passport.

Then I saw something I hadn't expected.

A second phone. Matte black. No case. Hidden under the cash.

I picked it up. It was unlocked.

The text thread with Naomi was open.

I scrolled.

Julian: She found the test. She's emotional. I'll bring her back tomorrow.

Naomi: And if she doesn't come back?

Julian: Then we accelerate the timeline. The baby is what matters. Once it's born, my lawyers file for full custody. Father with resources vs. mother with nothing. No judge will side with her.

My blood turned to ice.

Naomi: What if she runs?

Julian: She won't. She has nowhere to go. She's a nobody from nowhere. I made her. Without me, she doesn't exist.

I read it twice. Three times.

He wasn't just planning to divorce me after the birth. He was planning to take my baby.

My hand went to my stomach. Protective. Primal.

"Sera?" Maya's voice crackled in my ear. "You've been quiet for three minutes. Talk to me."

"He's going to try to take the baby," I said. My voice was steady, but my soul was screaming. "He has a custody strategy. He's planning to prove I'm unfit."

"Then we don't just disappear," Maya said, her voice hard as iron. "We prepare."

I took photos of every text. Every message. Every plan.

Then I put the phone back exactly where I found it.

I closed the safe. I stood up. I looked around the closet one last time.

On the top shelf, behind a row of cashmere scarves, I spotted a small velvet box I'd never seen before.

I opened it.

Inside was a ring. Not my ring. An enormous oval sapphire surrounded by diamonds.

The engraving inside the band read: To my Naomi. Soon.

He'd already bought the replacement ring. While I was still wearing mine.

I put the box back. I didn't take it. I didn't need it.

I had something worth more than sapphires.

I had proof.

I walked out of the penthouse, past the rose on the pillow, past the portrait of us on the wedding day that hung in the foyer—my smile so wide, so stupid—and into the elevator.

The doors closed on that life.

When I reached the car, Maya looked at my face and didn't ask questions. She just drove.

At a red light, she finally spoke.

"How bad?"

"He bought her a ring," I said. "Engraved. While I was sleeping next to him."

Maya's grip tightened on the steering wheel.

"And he's going to try to take my baby the moment it's born."

Maya ran the red light. Neither of us flinched.

"Over my dead body," she said.