Chapter 2 - The Passage Behind the Wall
Gabriel had forgotten who showed Beatatrice the house before it belonged to him.
Her grandfather.
Long before Gabriel Rossy transformed the century-old estate outside Chicago into the fortified home of a crime lord, Beatatrice had run through its unfinished corridors as a child.
Her grandfather had been the architect hired to restore the original mansion.
And old houses kept secrets.
Beatatrice pressed her palm against the third walnut panel.
Nothing.
Her heartbeat accelerated.
“Come on.”
She pressed lower.
A faint click answered.
The panel moved half an inch.
Beatatrice almost cried.
Behind it waited darkness.
Twenty years earlier, her grandfather had laughingly called it the servants’ artery—a narrow network of passages connecting bedrooms to staircases and storage rooms.
Gabriel had sealed most of them during renovations.
Most.
Beatatrice grabbed the duffel bag.
Then she stopped.
Her hand moved instinctively over her stomach.
The baby kicked.
“I know,” she whispered. “I’m scared too.”
Music thundered below.
Guests were counting down.
Ten.
Nine.
Beatatrice squeezed sideways through the opening.
Eight.
She pulled the panel closed.
Seven.
Darkness swallowed her.
Six.
She switched on her phone flashlight.
Five.
Dust floated through the beam.
Four.
She moved carefully down narrow wooden steps.
Three.
Her belly made every turn difficult.
Two.
Below her, hundreds of voices screamed.
“One!”
The mansion erupted.
Happy New Year.
Beatatrice Rossy disappeared.
She reached the old laundry corridor twelve minutes later and emerged behind shelves of tablecloths.
Nobody was there.
Everyone was celebrating.
She traded her ivory evening heels for sneakers hidden in the duffel.
Then she removed her diamond necklace.
Her earrings.
Finally, her wedding ring.
She stared at it.
Eight years.
She had loved Gabriel since she was twenty-two.
He had once waited outside a hospital for fourteen hours because she was having emergency surgery and refused to leave even when security threatened him.
When her father died, Gabriel had slept sitting upright beside her for three nights because she woke screaming whenever she was alone.
And when the pregnancy test showed two lines, the most feared man she knew had dropped to his knees and cried against her stomach.
That man had kissed her sister tonight.
That man had locked her inside a room.
Beatatrice placed the ring on a shelf.
Then she walked away.
A service exit opened onto the rear gardens.
Snow covered the ground.
She had made it twenty yards when headlights swept across the trees.
Beatatrice froze.
A black SUV turned around the corner.
Gabriel’s security.
She dropped behind a stone planter.
Her phone vibrated.
GABRIEL.
She rejected the call.
It rang again.
Then a message appeared.
Where are you?
Another.
Beatatrice. Answer me.
Then:
OPEN THE BEDROOM DOOR. NOW.
Despite everything, she nearly laughed.
He still thought she was inside.
Beatatrice switched off the phone.
She crossed the gardens toward an old maintenance gate hidden behind evergreens.
At 12:43 a.m., she reached the road.
Her escape plan had always depended on one person.
She removed a prepaid phone.
One number was memorized.
It rang twice.
“Hello?”
Beatatrice closed her eyes.
“Daniel?”
Silence.
Then the man's voice changed.
“Bea?”
Daniel Mercer had been her father’s attorney.
More importantly, he had been Gabriel Rossy’s attorney until he suddenly resigned three years earlier and vanished from their social circle.
“I need the favor you promised me.”
Another silence.
“Where are you?”
“Outside the north gate.”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“No questions?”
“One. Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Stay hidden.”
He disconnected.
Beatatrice waited beneath a railway overpass while snow collected on her hair.
Twenty-three minutes later, an old gray pickup stopped.
Daniel opened the passenger door.
He was fifty-eight now, with silver hair and the exhausted eyes of a man who had spent years waiting for this exact phone call.
He looked at her stomach.
Then her face.
“What did Gabriel do?”
Beatatrice climbed inside.
“Drive.”
Daniel did.
At 1:17 a.m., Gabriel finally ordered his men to break down the bedroom door.
They found an empty room.
An open closet.
And no wife.
Gabriel stood perfectly still.
Then he saw something on the bed.
Beatatrice had left a note.
Only four words.
You were wrong. Goodbye.
Gabriel crushed it in his fist.
“Close every airport.”
His security chief stared at him.
“Boss—”
“Train stations. Bus terminals. Highways.”
“She’s pregnant.”
Gabriel turned.
That single observation nearly cost the man his life.
“I know.”
Within minutes, twenty-three vehicles left the estate.
But Gabriel made one mistake.
He searched for a frightened pregnant woman.
Beatatrice had stopped being frightened.
By sunrise, Daniel’s pickup was parked inside an abandoned warehouse sixty miles away.
A second vehicle waited inside.
Different plates.
Different registration.
Daniel handed Beatatrice an envelope.
“Your father left this with me nine years ago.”
She stared at him.
“My father?”
“He told me to give it to you if you ever needed to escape your husband.”
Beatatrice went cold.
“My father died before I married Gabriel.”
“I know.”
“Then how could he—”
“He knew what Gabriel was becoming.”
Daniel opened the envelope.
Inside were incorporation records.
Bank documents.
And a photograph.
Beatatrice picked it up.
Her father stood beside Gabriel’s father.
Between them was a third man she didn't recognize.
On the back, her father had written:
If Gabriel ever becomes your enemy, find Adrian Vale.
Beatatrice looked at Daniel.
“Who is Adrian Vale?”
May you like
Daniel’s expression darkened.
“The only man Gabriel Rossy has ever been afraid of.”
