Chapter 7 - THE RUNAWAY HEIR
The industrial fire escape stairs rattled violently beneath my boots as I scrambled down from the fourth floor into the damp, shadowed alleyway below.
The rain had stopped, leaving behind a thick, gray morning fog that clung to the brick walls like a shroud. My lungs burned with the cold air, but I didn't stop. I ran through the maze of commercial dumpsters and delivery bays until I burst out onto a bustling downtown avenue just as the city was waking up for the workday.
Commuters hurried past me in heavy wool coats, carrying briefcases and hot coffees, completely unaware that a woman was running for her life just inches away from them.
I ducked into a crowded subway station, swiping my transit card with shaking hands and boarding the first southbound train that arrived.
As the metal car rumbled down the dark tracks, my reflection stared back at me in the glass window. My hair was messy, my coat was damp, and my chest was heaving. But beneath the panic, a fierce, unbreakable resolve burned in my eyes.
Luke thought he could send his corporate thugs to kidnap me like a piece of lost property. He thought his money and his muscle could erase my freedom.
He was wrong.
My phone—the burner Maya had given me—buzzed in my pocket.
I pulled it out, glancing at the screen. It was a text message from an unknown number.
“She’s safe. I slipped out through the service stairwell while Marcus was dealing with the police. Meet me at Union Station. Platform 3.”
It was from Elena.
A massive wave of relief washed over me. I hadn't just abandoned her; she had fought her way out too.
Forty minutes later, I stood near the massive arched iron windows of Union Station, scanning the bustling crowds beneath the towering vaulted ceilings. Commuters rushed past train schedules and ticket booths, the announcements echoing over the loudspeaker.
"Sophia!"
I turned. Elena was jogging toward me, wearing a oversized trench coat, her hair tied back in a messy bun, looking nothing like the pristine, collected surgeon she usually was.
She reached me, grabbing my arm and pulling me behind a large marble pillar out of the main sightline.
"Are you okay?" she breathed, checking me over for injuries. "Did they hurt you?"
"I'm fine," I said quickly, catching my breath. "What happened after I ran?"
"Chaos," Elena groaned, rubbing her face with her hands. "I screamed bloody murder, threatened to sue Marcus for kidnapping, and when a transit cop finally wandered over to see what the commotion was, I slipped out the service stairwell. Marcus is going to have my head on a spike, but I couldn't care less."
"Elena... you risked everything for me," I said, my voice thick with emotion. "Your career, your standing in the family, your safety."
"My family is rotten, Sophia," Elena said fiercely, looking me dead in the eye. "Luke has spent his entire life believing that money and power give him the right to own people. Someone needed to show him that he doesn't."
She paused, her expression softening as she reached out, gently placing a hand over my arm. "What are you going to do now? You can't go back to your loft. Marcus knows where it is. If you stay in Chicago, Luke will hunt you down within twenty-four hours."
I looked down at the marble floor, my mind racing through the map of the country. I had money in my independent accounts, I had a valid passport, and I had a fierce, unyielding will to protect the life growing inside me.
"I'm leaving Illinois," I said quietly.
Elena’s eyes widened. "Leaving? Where?"
"My mother’s old hometown," I said, a faint memory surfacing from my childhood—a quiet, sun-drenched coastal town in Maine where the ocean met the pine trees, far away from the concrete jungles and mafia-style boardrooms of Chicago. "Nobody knows me there. Nobody knows Luke Morgan. I can set up a new studio, rent a small house, and start over."
"Alone?" Elena asked softly.
"Not alone," I said, resting my hand gently over my stomach. "I have my baby."
Elena stared at me for a long moment, a slow, proud smile breaking through the exhaustion on her face. "Let me help you."
"Elena, you've already risked enough—"
"I am coming with you," she interrupted, her voice leaving zero room for argument. "At least until you're settled. My medical license is nationally transferrable, and quite frankly, taking a permanent sabbatical from the Morgan family sounds like the best prescription I've written in my life."
Before I could answer, a sharp, collective gasp echoed through the station.
Several commuters near the main entrance suddenly stopped in their tracks, stepping backward to clear a path.
The low, frantic murmur of the crowd rippled outward like a shockwave.
I turned my head toward the concourse.
Walking through the heavy iron doors of Union Station, flanked by four grim-faced security guards and Marcus Vance, was Luke Morgan.
May you like
He wore a tailored charcoal overcoat, his dark hair ruffled by the wind, his eyes scanning the cavernous hall with the deadly precision of a wolf closing in on a wounded deer.
And as he turned his head, his dark, piercing gaze locked directly onto the marble pillar where Elena and I were standing.
