Chapter 3: The Escape Plan

Alessia

I woke up with an ache between my legs and a tighter one in my chest.

For a moment, I didn’t move. I lay there, eyes open, staring at the edge of the blanket as morning light stretched across the room like it didn’t know how broken I felt. My limbs were stiff, my body sore, but I didn’t care about the physical pain. It was the emptiness that settled in after that night with Adrian that made it hard to breathe.

He hadn’t come back. I heard him shut the guest room door after everything. I waited, stupidly, hoping maybe he’d come back in the middle of the night, say something, but all I got was silence.

And now, morning. My side of the bed looked slept-in. His still looked perfect.

I wrapped the blanket around myself and sat up, my bare feet hitting the cold floor. The air in the room was sharp, like it hadn’t moved in hours. I could still feel traces of him on my skin—his breath, his hands, his weight—but it felt more like residue than memory. Like something I needed to wash off before it sunk deeper.

In the hallway, I passed Rosa, the housekeeper. She’d been with Adrian’s family since before the wedding. Usually, she greeted me with a tight smile or a polite nod. This time, she looked away. Her eyes dropped to the floor like she didn’t want to see me. Or maybe she did see me—and she pitied what she saw.

I didn’t blame her.

I went back to the kitchen, poured myself coffee, and didn’t drink it. I just held the mug, letting the warmth seep into my fingers, trying to feel anything.

The silence in the house had weight. It always did. But this morning it felt heavier, like it was pressing down on me, warning me that something had finally snapped.

I was still sitting there when my phone rang.

I knew before I even picked it up. That kind of dread doesn’t wait.

It was my cousin Maria. Her voice was gentle but strained. “Alessia… it’s your father. You need to come now.”

My throat closed.

I stood in the driveway ten minutes later, keys in hand, eyes scanning the front of the house like I might see him stepping out. Adrian. The man I married. The man I begged—begged—for something, anything, and who gave me nothing.

I sent him a text.

“I am going to my dad. They don’t think he’ll make it through the night. I’m going.”

He read it.

Didn’t reply.

Didn’t follow.

Not even a call.

I stared at the screen for a long time before sliding the phone into my bag and driving off.

The house smelled like a quiet grief. I found my father in a bed too white, too still. His eyes fluttered open when I took his hand, and he smiled weakly, like even now, he didn’t want me to worry.

“You came,” he whispered.

“Of course I did,” I said, my voice cracking. “You’re my father.”

He didn’t ask where Adrian was. Maybe he knew better. Maybe he knew that all the things he thought he was securing for me by marrying me off to Volkov meant nothing now. That the girl who used to laugh in his kitchen, barefoot and full of dreams, had vanished.

I stayed for hours. Held his hand. Watched his chest rise and fall. Made promises I wasn’t sure I believed anymore.

By the time I got home, the sun was long gone.

The house was dark. Adrian was out—his calendar said "business dinner." I didn’t even bother pretending to care what that meant anymore.

I climbed the stairs slowly. My body was exhausted, but my mind wouldn’t shut off.

In the bathroom, I stripped off my clothes and stared at myself in the mirror.

I looked pale. Worn. Not like a wife. Not even like a woman. Just… tired.

I opened the medicine cabinet looking for something—anything—to help with the headache pressing against my skull.

That’s when I saw it.

The test.

Still in the box, shoved to the back of the shelf. Left there from months ago, when I still had a stupid sliver of hope that Adrian might want to build something with me.

I don’t even know what made me reach for it. Maybe it was the nausea that morning I blamed on stress. Or the fact that I hadn’t bled in weeks. I don’t know. I just remember unwrapping it, sitting on the toilet, and feeling like I was outside my own body.

Three minutes never felt so long.

I didn’t even want to look.

But I did.

Two pink lines.

It hit me like a whisper, not a scream.

I’m pregnant.

I stared at the result, my hands shaking so hard I had to sit down. My heart was racing, but my thoughts were too slow to catch up. I covered my mouth with my hand and let out a broken, breathless laugh.

Pregnant.

With his child.

I didn’t cry at first. I just stared at that little stick like it could give me answers I didn’t know how to ask for. Then it hit me.

This little thing. This life—it was real.

And it had no idea what kind of man its father was.

I cried, then.

Silently at first, then with soft sobs I buried into a towel to keep from echoing through the house. Not because I didn’t want this baby. Not because I was scared of being a mother. But because I knew the truth now—this wasn’t a life I could raise a child in.

Not here.

Not with Adrian Volkov.

Not in a house where love went to die.

When the tears slowed, I sat on the bathroom floor with my knees drawn to my chest and the test still clutched in my hand. I thought about all the nights I stayed silent. All the times I begged him to just look at me like I was more than furniture in his life.

And now… I was done.

I wasn’t going to beg anymore.

I wasn’t going to raise a child with a man who couldn’t even ask if I made it to the hospital safely. Who walked away after touching me like I was nothing.

I stood up, wiped my face, and looked at myself again in the mirror.

I still looked tired. Still pale. But something in my eyes had shifted.

Resolve.

I walked to the bedroom. Pulled out the suitcase from the top shelf. Laid it open on the bed.

This time, I wasn’t folding my clothes carefully like a wife. I was packing like a woman who had finally had enough.

I didn’t know where I’d go. Not yet.

But anywhere had to be better than this.