Chapter 2 - The Man Outside the Grocery Store
I left the grocery store through the back.
No plan.
No groceries.
Just fear.
A teenage employee was dragging cardboard toward the loading area when I pushed through the swinging metal door.
“Ma’am?”
“I forgot something.”
He stared at me.
I kept walking.
The alley smelled like wet leaves and cooking grease.
I turned left.
Then right.
My rented room was three blocks away, but I knew better than to go there.
If Gavin had found me, the apartment was already compromised.
I crossed a side street and reached the old Baptist church parking lot.
My hands were shaking.
My lungs felt too small.
“Amelia.”
I stopped.
Gavin stood twenty feet behind me.
He had not run.
That frightened me more.
“Don’t come closer.”
He lifted both hands.
“I’m not going to touch you.”
“You found me.”
“Yes.”
“Does Declan know?”
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
For four months I had imagined that answer.
Some versions made me furious.
Some made me relieved.
Reality made me nauseous.
“Is he here?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
“He wanted to come.”
“Of course he did.”
“I told him not to.”
That made me look at him.
Gavin had been Declan’s closest security man for almost a decade. Late thirties. Scar along one eyebrow. Quiet enough that people often forgot he was in the room.
“Why?”
“Because if Declan showed up first, you’d run again.”
“You think I’m not going to run from you?”
“I think you’re twenty weeks pregnant and standing in cold rain with no coat zipped.”
I looked down.
He was right.
I hated that.
Gavin slowly removed his coat.
“Don’t.”
“I’m leaving it on the bench.”
He placed it there and stepped backward.
I did not take it.
“Why are you here?”
“To make sure you’re safe.”
“From whom?”
His expression changed.
“That’s why I came alone.”
Cold moved through me that had nothing to do with weather.
“Explain.”
Gavin looked around the empty lot.
“Savannah’s father knows you’re alive.”
I laughed once.
“Congratulations to him.”
“He may know about the pregnancy.”
My body went still.
“No.”
“We intercepted questions about a woman matching your description.”
“From who?”
“Calloway people.”
I wrapped both arms around my stomach.
“The engagement was supposed to protect me, wasn’t it?”
Gavin said nothing.
That was enough.
I felt stupid.
Angry.
Then angrier for feeling stupid.
“Don’t defend him.”
“I’m not.”
“Good.”
“But you should hear the part you left before.”
I looked at him.
“What part?”
He hesitated.
“The sentence after ‘resolved quietly.’”
I hated that my heart moved.
“What was it?”
“Declan said, ‘She’ll be resolved quietly. No one gets her name. No one touches her. Savannah and I end this after six months, once Calloway signs the port agreement.’”
I stared.
Gavin continued.
“You heard the worst sentence and left before he explained the plan.”
“He still announced an engagement.”
“Yes.”
“Without telling me.”
“Yes.”
“He still decided my life was something to manage.”
“Yes.”
That honesty disarmed me more than excuses.
I looked toward the road.
“You knew?”
“About the engagement? Yes.”
“About me?”
“Yes.”
“About the baby?”
“No.”
“Did Declan?”
Gavin’s face softened.
“No.”
I believed him.
I hated that too.
A car passed.
I flinched.
Gavin saw it.
“Amelia, we need to leave this town.”
“No.”
“Calloway men were in Asheville yesterday.”
“Then I’ll go somewhere else.”
“With what identity?”
I stared.
He knew.
“My documents are clean.”
“Clean enough for a landlord. Not clean enough for people who pay customs officers.”
My pulse climbed.
“I’m not going back to Chicago.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
That surprised me.
“Where then?”
“Safe house in Virginia. Neutral property. No Voss staff except me and one woman you choose.”
“I don’t choose anyone.”
“You know Mrs. Whitaker?”
My stomach dropped.
“What did you do to June?”
“Nothing.”
“Where is she?”
“At her house.”
“You went there?”
“I had to confirm you were still alive after you ran out the back door.”
I wanted to hit him.
Instead, I walked toward the bench and grabbed his coat.
Not because I trusted him.
Because I was freezing.
The baby moved.
A flutter.
Barely there.
I put my hand over the spot.
Gavin looked away politely.
That small courtesy mattered.
“Declan will come,” I said.
“If you allow it.”
“You expect me to believe he’ll ask?”
“He’s been learning unpleasant lessons.”
“Good.”
Gavin took out his phone.
“I need you to see something.”
“No.”
“It’s not from Declan.”
I almost walked away.
Then he turned the screen toward me.
A surveillance photo.
Savannah Calloway.
She was standing outside Voss Tower with her father, Vincent Calloway.
The timestamp was three weeks after my disappearance.
Her expression was furious.
Another photo showed her entering a courthouse.
“What is this?”
“Her engagement contract was dissolved.”
I stared.
“When?”
“Forty-eight hours after you vanished.”
My chest tightened.
“The public announcement stayed up.”
“Calloway insisted on keeping appearances while negotiations continued.”
“Why?”
“Because if rivals knew the alliance collapsed, they would know something important had changed.”
“Me.”
“And possibly the reason.”
My hand went to my stomach again.
I hated being spoken of like an intelligence asset.
“So Declan lied to everyone.”
“He lied to people trying to kill him.”
“He also lied to me.”
“Yes.”
Again, no defense.
I breathed slowly.
“What happened after the engagement ended?”
“Savannah married no one. The port agreement failed. Calloway lost money. Declan made enemies.”
“Because I left?”
“Because he broke the alliance.”
My throat tightened.
“Why?”
Gavin looked at me like the answer was obvious.
“Because you disappeared.”
I did not want that to matter.
But it did.
We returned to June’s building separately.
She was waiting upstairs with a baseball bat.
When Gavin entered behind me, she raised it.
“June.”
“He bothering you?”
“Possibly.”
Gavin lifted his hands again.
“I get that a lot today.”
June looked at my face.
“You know him.”
“Yes.”
“Bad know?”
“Complicated know.”
She lowered the bat two inches.
“Those are usually the bad kind.”
I almost smiled.
Then headlights swept across the front windows.
Two SUVs.
Not Gavin’s.
He swore.
June’s face changed.
“What?”
Gavin pulled a handgun.
I stepped back.
“No.”
“Behind the brick wall.”
“Who is it?”
He looked through the curtain.
“Calloway.”
The baby kicked.
Harder this time.
My fear became something else.
Not panic.
Clarity.
“Back stairs?”
June pointed.
“Through the storage room.”
Gavin handed me his keys.
“Black Tahoe. Alley. Engine running.”
“You?”
“I’ll slow them down.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
He looked at me.
“Amelia.”
“No one dies because of me.”
“This isn’t because of you.”
It was the first sentence anyone in Declan’s world had ever said that did not make me feel like collateral.
Glass shattered downstairs.
June grabbed my arm.
“Move.”
We ran.
I reached the alley.
The Tahoe was there.
Door unlocked.
I climbed behind the wheel.
June got in beside me.
Before I could start moving, someone stepped from the darkness.
A man in a black suit.
Gun low at his side.
Not Calloway.
Declan.
He looked thinner than I remembered.
More dangerous.
More exhausted.
His eyes dropped immediately to my stomach.
For a second, the entire world stopped.
Then he looked at my face.
“Amelia.”
I could not speak.
He took one step closer.
Then stopped himself.
“May I come near you?”
May you like
That question broke something open inside me.
Because it was the first thing he should have asked months ago.
