Chapter 6 - The Crossing
The border crossing at Lacolle, south of Montreal, was quiet at 11:30 p.m. Rain had turned into a wet, freezing sleet that smeared across the Volvo’s windshield as I pulled into the queue of vehicles waiting at the Canadian customs booth.
My heart was hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird, but my face remained completely calm. I had spent thirty minutes in the safehouse bathroom carefully changing my appearance: my long dark hair was tucked under a blonde wig, my makeup executed to widen my eyes and soften my features, making me look younger and decidedly un-glamorous.
I rolled down the driver's side window as I pulled up to the booth. The cold, wet air rushed into the warm car.
A uniformed Canadian Border Services officer looked down at me through the window, his flash-light beam sweeping briefly over the interior of the car, catching my pregnant belly beneath my unzipped coat.
"Good evening, ma'am," the officer said in crisp, bilingual English. "Passport and vehicle registration, please."
I handed him my Italian passport and the rental documentation for the Volvo, issued under the name Clara Rossini.
"Purpose of your visit to Canada?" he asked, flipping through the burgundy passport pages.
"Visiting family in Montreal for the holidays," I replied in smooth, accent-free Italian, before repeating it in softly accented French. "My aunt lives near Mount Royal. I'm taking a few weeks of rest before the baby arrives."
The officer looked at the passport photo, then looked at me. His eyes lingered for a second on my face, then shifted down to the computer screen inside his booth.
Those three seconds felt like an eternity.
I kept my hands resting lightly on the steering wheel, my posture relaxed, my expression one of mild, weary patience—the exact look of a pregnant woman tired after a long night drive.
Inside my pocket, my thumb rested against the small panic button on the burner phone. If the screen flashed red, if Dominic’s legal alerts had somehow bridged the international police database, I knew what I would have to do.
The officer tapped his keyboard twice. The printer inside the booth hummed.
He stamped the page, pulled a yellow slip of paper from his desk, and handed both back through the window.
"Enjoy your stay in Quebec, Ms. Rossini," he said with a polite nod. "Drive carefully on the bridge. The roads are getting icy."
"Thank you, officer," I murmured, taking the passport.
I rolled up the window, put the Volvo in gear, and drove slowly past the mechanical barrier.
As the rear tires crossed the painted white line marking the international border, a huge, silent breath escaped my lungs. The terrifying weight that had been pressing down on my chest since 12:17 a.m. at the Halston Grand Hotel didn't vanish—but it transformed.
I was no longer in the United States. Dominic’s ex parte Nassau County court order was legally useless here without an international extradition warrant—a warrant he could never obtain without proving to a Canadian judge that I had committed a serious crime.
May you like
I glanced in the side mirror as the lights of the American border station receded into the freezing fog behind me.
Step one is complete, Dominic, I thought, as the Volvo accelerated down the dark Canadian highway toward Montreal. Now let's see how well your empire holds up when you have to fight in the light.
