Chapter 4

I hung up. Dropped the phone in my bag.

Just then, the door to the trauma room opened at the end of the hall.

Sharp, confident footsteps.

Alaric reached me. His hand went to my shoulder.

"Alessia, you've been through a lot." His eyes were red. His voice thick with gratitude. "I knew it. You're the kindest woman in the world."

I sidestepped him. A small step back. His hand met empty air.

My stomach roiled. The smell of antiseptic, of him, was suffocating.

I dug my nails into my palms. Hard.

It was the only thing stopping me from slapping that hypocritical face.

"The blood draw made me dizzy." I looked up at him. My voice was flat. "I'm going downstairs for a coffee."

He didn't notice the dead calm in my voice. The finality.

His mind was on the woman named Bianca. And the secret son eating pasta by a lake in Wisconsin.

"Go on. Come back quickly." He waved his hand, distracted. His eyes were already darting back to the trauma room door. "The doctor said they'll need more of your blood soon. Don't go far."

I didn't look at him again.

I turned. I walked toward the elevator. My steps were firm.

I left the man I once loved to death in that stinking hallway. Left him with five years of lies.

The elevator doors closed. Cutting off his disgusting presence.

I didn't go to the coffee shop.

I went straight to my sports car. I got in. I floored it.

The engine roared. A scream of rage I couldn't let out.

Thirty minutes later, I screeched to a halt in front of the Gold Coast mansion.

I pushed open the door.

The sickening perfume still hung in the air. A ghost of the memory from hours ago.

I didn't linger.

I ran upstairs. Into the walk-in closet. I pulled out my monogrammed trunk.

Passport. My mother's faded journal. A few changes of clothes.

I threw them in.

My movements were fast. Efficient. Like a soldier packing for war.

The designer coats he bought me. The jewelry boxes with five-figure price tags. I didn't touch any of it.

They belonged to Alessia Ricci. Along with this house.

That woman died tonight.

Before zipping the suitcase, I stood at the master bedroom door.

That door.

That bed.

Hours ago, Bianca had moaned on that bed. She'd said the word "two years."

I opened my purse. I took out the pregnancy test. The plastic was cracked from how hard I'd squeezed it.

Even so, the two red lines were sharp. Blinding.

The result of four years of humiliation.

The start of my new life.

I walked to the nightstand. I opened the top drawer.

The copy of the "fake" divorce agreement lay there. The one he'd cried over, begging me to sign.

I pulled it out. I smoothed it on top of the nightstand.

Then I placed the pregnancy test right in the center. A paperweight.

I dragged my suitcase downstairs. I didn't look back.

---

Two hours later. Mount Sinai Hospital.

The trauma room door burst open.

"Mr. Gallo!" a nurse yelled, holding an empty blood line. "Her pressure is dropping again! The bleeding is out of control. We can't stop it. You need to get your wife back here for the second draw. Now! Any later and it will be too late!"

Alaric shot to his feet.

He ripped his phone out of his pocket. He dialed my number.

A cold, mechanical voice answered.

"The number you have dialed has been turned off."

He froze.

He dialed again. Still off.

"Damn it!" He hurled his phone against the hallway wall.

He spun around, grabbing one of his bodyguards by the collar.

"Find her! Check the coffee shop! The parking garage! Drag her back here if you have to!"

Ten minutes later, the bodyguard ran back, his face white.

"Boss, her car's not in the garage. Security footage shows her driving away. Two hours ago."

Alaric's mind went blank.

He couldn't believe it. The woman who did everything he said. The woman who signed away her fortune without a single question. She ran? At a time like this?

"Hold on." He threw the words at the unconscious Bianca in the trauma room, ignoring the doctor's protests.

He stormed out of the hospital. Jumped in his car. And tore off toward home.

He had to get to her before she figured things out. He would play the victim. He would act out his deep love for her. She would fold. She always did.

The car screeched to a halt in front of the mansion.

He burst through the door, burning with rage.

"Alessia! What the hell are you playing at!"

The house was dead silent.

Empty.

He ran upstairs. Threw open the closet doors.

All the designer clothes and jewels were there. Untouched.

But he noticed it immediately. The black trunk, usually tucked away in the bottom corner, was gone.

A deep, unfamiliar dread started to crawl up his spine.

He spun around, furious, and stormed toward the master bedroom. Ready to unleash his fury.

"Alessia! Don't think hiding from me will fix this!"

He kicked the bedroom door open. His voice died in his throat.

The room was empty.

But he saw it instantly. The white paper, laid out on the nightstand.

The copy of the fake divorce agreement.

And in the middle of it, holding it down, was a white plastic stick.

Alaric moved stiffly. Like a robot.

He saw the cracked pregnancy test.

He saw the two damning red lines.

His blood ran cold.

Alessia was pregnant.

Worse. She was pregnant, and she might know everything.