Chapter 4 - The Escape
They didn't leave through the side entrance. They didn't sneak out through the service hallway where Grant had dragged her.
The three Caldwell brothers walked Eleanor straight down the center aisle of the Grand Marquette ballroom.
Adrian stayed on her right, holding her close beneath his coat. Gabriel walked half a step ahead, clearing a path through the crowd with mere eye contact. Julian walked behind them, his phone already pressed to his ear as he gave calm, devastating instructions to his senior partners.
“File the emergency injunction in Cook County,” Julian was saying into the phone. “Seize the Mercer Tower assets. Issue a press release from Caldwell Global regarding the immediate severing of all commercial ties with Mercer Development. Yes, tonight.”
As they passed Table Four, Eleanor saw Sarah Jenkins—a woman who had called herself Eleanor’s best friend for two years, the same woman who had been whispering behind her hand when Serena poured the punch.
Sarah reached out a hand, her face contorted into a fake, sympathetic expression. “Ellie, oh my god, I’m so sorry, if I had known—”
Gabriel didn't even break stride. He stepped between Sarah and Eleanor, his shoulder catching Sarah’s arm and knocking her hand away.
“Don't touch her,” Gabriel said without looking at her.
They reached the grand foyer. Outside the glass doors, the Chicago night was cold and rainy, but a fleet of four black armor-plated Escalades was idling along the curb, hazard lights flashing, surrounded by six private security guards in dark suits.
The head of Caldwell security opened the door to the lead vehicle.
Adrian helped Eleanor into the warm, leather-scented interior, climbing in beside her. Gabriel took the front passenger seat, while Julian slipped into the back row, his laptop already open, illuminating his sharp features in blue light.
The heavy doors slammed shut, sealing out the noise of the city, the cameras that had begun flashing outside, and the ruined world Eleanor had spent five years trying to maintain.
The convoy pulled away from the curb.
Inside the SUV, the heat was humming softly. Eleanor sat buried in Adrian’s coat, her hands clutching a hot thermal flask of tea that Gabriel had handed her the second the doors closed.
She stared down at the dark red punch stain on her knee.
“I threw away five years,” she whispered, her voice barely audible over the hum of the engine. “I hurt all of you. I called you monsters. I told Adrian he was paranoid.”
Gabriel turned around in his seat, resting his arm on the headrest. The scary enforcer who had nearly choked Grant to death on stage was gone. In his eyes was only an old, familiar tenderness.
“You didn't hurt us, Ellie,” Gabriel said softly. “You got tricked by a professional parasite. There’s a difference.”
“He isolate you,” Julian added from the back, his fingers flying across his keyboard. “Standard narcissistic tactic. Cut off the family, make himself the only source of validation, control the narrative. We let him do it because we thought if we forced you to choose, you’d run further.”
Julian paused, looking over his screen at her. “That was our mistake. We shouldn't have waited five years.”
Eleanor covered her face with her hands, weeping silently. “I was so stupid. I saw the signs. I saw the receipts six months ago. I found a bracelet in his car that wasn't mine. And I told myself I was crazy because I didn't want my baby to grow up in two different houses.”
Adrian put his arm around her shoulders, pulling her against his side.
“Your baby is going to grow up in a house with three uncles who own half of Chicago,” Adrian said, his voice deep and steady as a heartbeat. “Your baby is never going to hear a voice raised in anger. Your baby is going to have everything.”
Eleanor looked up at Adrian. “Where are we going?”
May you like
Adrian smiled—a small, rare, fiercely protective movement of his mouth.
“Home,” he said. “To the estate.”
