Chapter 2 - The Woman in the White Dress
Serena’s blood went cold.
“What did you say?”
Fiona released her.
Another gunshot shattered a window.
People dropped behind furniture as emergency lights flickered red along the hallway.
Serena reached blindly for the wall.
Her abdomen tightened again.
Twenty seconds.
Then release.
Braxton Hicks, she told herself.
Stress.
It had to be.
“Serena!”
Matthias found her near the fireplace.
His hands closed around her shoulders.
“Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine.”
“I said I’m—”
Pain cut through her again.
She inhaled sharply.
Matthias’s face changed.
“The baby?”
“Probably stress.”
“Probably?”
“I’m a nurse, Matthias, not an ultrasound machine.”
Roman appeared from the darkness.
“West window. Shooter outside the property line.”
Matthias looked toward him.
“Your people?”
“If they were mine, you wouldn’t have heard the shot.”
Roman’s men moved through the house.
Matthias pulled Serena toward the hallway.
“We’re leaving.”
“No.”
He stared at her.
“What?”
“Fiona knew.”
“Knew what?”
Serena searched the room.
Fiona was gone.
“She knew about the laptop.”
Matthias froze.
“What exactly did she say?”
“She told me I should never have opened your laptop.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It makes perfect sense if she knows what was on it.”
“I never told her.”
The words came too quickly.
Serena looked at him.
“So you admit you were with her in New Haven.”
Matthias’s jaw clenched.
“Not now.”
“Apparently ‘not now’ is your answer to everything.”
Roman approached.
“Your communications director disappeared.”
Matthias turned.
“What?”
“Side door opened twenty seconds after the power failed.”
“That door is alarmed.”
“Not tonight.”
Roman held up a small electronic device.
“System was bypassed from inside.”
Matthias stared at it.
Serena felt another contraction.
Stronger.
Roman noticed.
“Mrs. Dre needs a hospital.”
“No,” Serena said immediately.
Both men looked at her.
“The roads around the estate could be watched. Whoever planned this expected us to leave if something happened.”
Roman gave her an approving glance.
Matthias did not.
“You’re thirty-two weeks pregnant.”
“And someone just shot through your parents’ window.”
“You’re going to the hospital.”
“Stop ordering me around!”
Her voice echoed.
The room fell silent.
Matthias stared at her.
Serena’s breathing trembled.
“For three weeks, I’ve been carrying your daughter while trying to determine whether my husband is cheating on me and whether somebody intends to murder his entire family.”
Her eyes burned.
“You do not get to become protective now because it’s convenient.”
Matthias recoiled as though she had slapped him.
Roman looked away, granting them the closest thing to privacy available.
Matthias lowered his voice.
“I did not sleep with Fiona.”
Serena laughed once.
“Two guests. One hotel suite.”
“There’s an explanation.”
“Of course.”
“The Hensley deal isn’t a normal acquisition.”
“What is it?”
He hesitated.
That was enough.
Serena turned away.
Matthias caught himself before touching her.
“Serena.”
“No.”
“I can explain.”
“Then do it.”
He looked toward the guests.
Roman interrupted.
“Do it quickly. We have a larger problem.”
He handed Matthias a phone.
Security footage showed Fiona entering the estate’s study thirty minutes before Matthias arrived.
She used a key.
Then she removed something from a locked drawer.
Matthias swore.
“What was in there?” Serena asked.
He did not answer.
Roman did.
“Judging by his face? Something people kill for.”
Matthias looked at Serena.
“The Hensley file.”
“What is that?”
“A record of shell companies, payoffs, and property transfers connected to Dominic Hensley.”
Serena recognized the name.
Chicago developer.
Political donor.
A man newspapers described as untouchable.
“Why did you have it?”
“Because I was preparing to expose him.”
Roman’s expression remained cold.
“Half the information came from me.”
Serena looked between them.
“You two are working together?”
“Reluctantly,” Roman said.
Matthias ignored him.
“Fiona was helping us build a public communications strategy for when the evidence became public.”
“At hotels?”
Matthias closed his eyes.
“The New Haven meeting was with a federal prosecutor.”
“Why book one suite?”
“We didn’t.”
Serena frowned.
Matthias took out his phone and opened an email.
Two rooms.
Same hotel.
Same corporate account.
Serena stared.
“But the receipt—”
“Could have been altered.”
Roman said, “Or planted.”
The necklace.
Serena looked toward the door Fiona had escaped through.
“What about that?”
Matthias’s face hardened.
“I didn’t buy it.”
Serena’s anger faltered.
“Then who did?”
Nobody answered.
A security man entered.
“Mr. Vescari.”
He handed Roman a tablet.
Roman watched something.
His expression became murderous.
“Show them.”
It was exterior footage.
Fiona crossed the snowy lawn.
A black SUV waited beyond the gate.
A man opened the rear door.
Dominic Hensley.
Serena’s stomach dropped.
Fiona climbed inside.
The vehicle disappeared.
Matthias looked stunned.
“She was working for him.”
Roman shook his head.
“Worse.”
He enlarged the image.
Fiona had been carrying the Hensley file.
Matthias turned toward Serena.
“You were right.”
Serena did not feel vindicated.
She felt tired.
Then warmth suddenly spread down the inside of her leg.
She looked down.
Matthias followed her gaze.
A clear puddle appeared on the polished floor beneath her.
For once, Serena did not need nine years of trauma training to understand what was happening.
Her water had broken.
Eight weeks early.
“Matthias.”
His face went white.
Roman was already reaching for his phone.
Serena grabbed Matthias’s hand as another contraction struck.
This one was different.
Real.
Matthias held her upright.
Outside, another gunshot cracked through the snowy darkness.
May you like
Inside, Serena whispered the words that terrified him more than any bullet ever could.
“The baby is coming.”
