Chapter 1
“Six weeks and four days,” the doctor at Northwestern Memorial had said, pointing to the tiny shape on the screen. “Strong heartbeat. That’s a very good sign.”
Good sign.
The words felt almost cruel now.
On the television, Savannah Calloway stood beside Declan in a pearl-white dress, her hand resting possessively on his arm. The anchor called their engagement a union between two powerful families, but everyone in Chicago knew what that really meant: territory, loyalty, blood, and an alliance no one would dare challenge.
Only a week earlier, Declan had kissed my paint-stained fingers and told me I was the only place in Chicago where he could breathe. Now the same man stood beneath flashing cameras, looking like he had already erased me.
My phone vibrated.
DECLAN VOSS.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
I watched his name flash while the final corner of the ultrasound curled into black ash. Pressing a trembling hand against my still-flat stomach, I whispered, “Nobody is going to turn you into an heir to a war.”
The worst part was that Declan had never been cruel to me.
He remembered I hated lilies because they smelled like funerals. He once emptied an entire restaurant because music was making my migraine worse, and he could sit in my restoration studio for an hour listening to me explain seventeenth-century varnish as if nothing in his violent world mattered more.
That afternoon, everything changed.
I had gone to Voss Tower carrying the hospital envelope when I heard Savannah speaking behind a marble wall.
“My father says the marriage ends the uncertainty.”
“It has to happen,” Declan replied.
“And Amelia? The restoration girl?”
Silence followed.
Only one second, but sometimes one second is enough to destroy a future.
“Amelia is civilian,” Declan finally said. “She’ll be resolved quietly.”
Resolved.
The word sliced through me harder than any threat.
I left before hearing another sentence.
At 3:12 the next morning, I disappeared.
Cash. Passport. Prenatal vitamins. Three sweaters. My grandmother’s ring. Nothing Declan had ever bought me came with me.
Fourteen weeks later, I was hiding in a small mountain town outside Asheville, North Carolina, calling myself Claire Mason and renting a room above an abandoned antiques shop. Mrs. June Whitaker took cash and asked no questions, which made her exactly the kind of landlord I needed.
Every black SUV made my blood turn cold.
Still, life slowly grew inside me.
At ten weeks, I heard the heartbeat again. At fifteen, I bought tiny yellow socks and hid them beneath my pillow, and at seventeen weeks I stood before a cracked mirror with one hand over my growing belly.
“You will never be an heir to his empire,” I whispered. “You’ll never belong to his war.”
What I didn’t know was that Declan had been tearing Chicago apart looking for me.
He fired men, threatened allies, interrogated enemies, and sent his people through hospitals, bus stations, airports, shelters, and every address connected to my past. The mafia boss who terrified half the city apparently stopped sleeping after I vanished.
Then, on the twenty-sixth day of his search, his security chief Gavin Roarke entered Declan’s office carrying a tablet.
“I found something.”
According to the man who later told me what happened, Declan slowly lifted his eyes.
“Where is she?”
And hundreds of miles away, as I stood alone inside a tiny grocery store with one hand resting on my unborn child, a black SUV pulled silently against the curb outside.
The afternoon sun filtered through the dusty windows of the small mountain grocery store, casting long, amber rays across wooden shelves lined with canned goods and faded produce. I pulled my oversized cardigan tightly around my shoulders, my fingers gently brushing against the curve of my belly, which had begun to show a distinct, undeniable roundness beneath my loose cotton dress. At five months pregnant, the reality of what I was carrying felt more concrete, more vivid, and infinitely more precious. Every kick, every faint flutter beneath my palm was a reminder that I wasn't alone anymore. I had someone who belonged entirely to me, untainted by the blood, violence, and deceit of the Chicago underworld.
I reached for a carton of organic milk, my mind drifting back to the terrifying night I fled. I had spent hours walking through the freezing rain, hiding in public bus terminals, terrified that Declan's men—or worse, Savannah Calloway's enforcers—would track my digital footprint. Changing my name to Claire Mason and burning my old credit cards had been my only salvation. Here, tucked away in the misty, blue-ridged mountains of North Carolina, the frantic, neon-lit nightmare of Voss Tower felt like a lifetime ago.
Yet, deep down, a cold, nagging instinct warned me that ghosts had a habit of finding you, no matter how far you ran.
“You alright there, honey?” Mrs. Gable, the elderly woman behind the cash register, asked kindly, noticing me pause near the dairy aisle.
“I’m fine, Mrs. Gable. Just resting for a moment,” I smiled weakly, pulling together my groceries and walking up to the counter.
As Mrs. Gable scanned my items, a low, ominous rumble echoed from outside on the quiet two-lane highway. I glanced through the glass front window.
A sleek, matte-black Escalade with tinted windows rolled silently to a stop right outside the grocery store doors.
My breath caught in my throat. My blood turned to ice.
In Chicago, matte-black Escalades weren't just vehicles; they were the signature calling card of Declan Voss’s private security detail.
Before I could turn around and bolt toward the back exit, the heavy glass door of the store swung open with a soft ding. The ambient noise of the small shop seemed to vanish instantly. Two towering men in dark suits stepped inside, their broad shoulders filling the narrow aisle, their eyes instantly scanning every corner of the room with cold, military precision.
And then, stepping between them, came Declan Voss.
He wore a dark wool overcoat, his chiseled, aristocratic features etched with a tired, desperate fury that made him look like a hunting wolf finally cornering its prey. His slate-grey eyes swept across the store until they locked directly onto mine.
For three seconds, neither of us moved. The world narrowed down to the space between us—a space filled with four months of agony, betrayal, and a secret he had no idea existed.
May you like
“Amelia,” Declan breathed, his voice cracking with a raw, broken vulnerability I had never heard from the most feared mafia boss in Chicago. He started walking toward me, his steps fast and purposeful, closing the distance before I could even draw another breath.
Panic surged through my veins. I stepped backward, slamming my hip against a display rack of canned peaches, my hand flying instinctively over my swollen belly to shield my baby. “Stay away from me, Declan!” I cried out, my voice trembling with sudden, fierce terror. “Don't you dare come near me!”
