CHAPTER THREE

​Lysandra’s POV

​I ran all the way from the hospital back to my father's small house, my bare feet bleeding from the rough pavement and my thin hospital gown damp from the chilly night, and I pounded my fists against the front door until the lock clicked and he finally opened it. 

He stood there staring at me in total shock, looking at my messy hair and my crying face, and he quickly grabbed my arm to pull me inside into the hallway before slamming the door shut and locking it tight.

​"Lysandra, what are you doing here, and why are you dressed like that?" he asked, his hands shaking as he looked out the small window to check the street, and he turned back to me with a very pale face, whispering, "You shouldn't be out in public right now, it isn't safe for you to be walking around."

​"Atlas completely erased our marriage, Dad, his family deleted every single record, and two men just tried to kill me while I was lying in my hospital bed!" I screamed, grabbing the front of his shirt because I needed him to tell me he was going to help me fix this, but he just shook his head, looking down at the floor and avoiding my eyes.

​"Please, just stop asking questions about him, Lysandra, you need to drop this whole thing right now and just let it go," he begged, his voice trembling as he tried to pry my fingers off his clothes, and he stepped back into the living room, looking completely small and defeated.

​"How can you tell me to let it go when I am pregnant with his child, Dad, and we need to go to the police right now because you were at the wedding, you stood right next to us and saw the whole thing!" I shouted, the panic rising in my throat as I watched him step further away from me.

​"The police won't do anything because there is no proof left anywhere, Lysandra, and that is because they paid off every single person who was in that room," he confessed, his voice dropping to a low whisper as he sat down on the edge of the couch, and he added, "They paid off the priest, the caterers, the witnesses, and they paid me too."

​I froze right there on the rug, staring at my own father as if he were a complete stranger, and I choked out, "You took money to pretend your own daughter was never married, so how could you look at me and do something so horrible?"

​"You were never good enough for a family like the Devereuxs anyway, Lysandra, you were just a regular girl living in some fantasy world, and that money actually saved my life because I owed millions to some very dangerous people who were going to end me if I didn't pay them back immediately," he snapped, his voice turning defensive and angry as he stood back up, and he reached into his jacket pocket to pull out a envelope.

​"You literally sold my entire life just to pay off your own gambling debts," I whispered, feeling completely sick to my stomach while he forced the heavy white envelope into my trembling hands.

​"Inside is a plane ticket to Europe, and there is a note with a direct message from their people," he said, grabbing my shoulder and pushing me toward the front door without showing a single bit of pity, and he added, "Open it once you get outside, and you need to leave the country tonight if you want your child to live."

​He shoved me out to the porch and slammed the door, locking it loudly from the inside, and when I ripped the envelope open under the streetlamp, I found a one-way ticket alongside a small slip of paper that had one typed sentence: Leave tonight if you want your child to live.

​I stumbled down the driveway toward the main road, sobbing so hard that I could barely see the sidewalk in front of me, when suddenly a pair of headlights turned the corner and a black car accelerated straight toward me at full speed. 

I scrambled back onto the grass, but the car swerved sharply, mounting the curb and aiming right for me, and no matter which way I tried to run or dodge, the driver kept turning the wheel to follow me, the engine roaring loudly as the front bumper closed the distance.

​Just as the car was about to hit me, a massive silver SUV roared out from a side street and slammed directly into the side of the black car with a loud crunch of metal, forcing the attacker's vehicle to spin out across the asphalt. 

The rear passenger door of the silver SUV swung open immediately, and a man in a black suit leaned out, shouting over the noise of the steaming engines, "Get in the car right now if you want to stay alive!"

​With no other choice and seeing the black car already trying to reverse, I scrambled up into the leather seat and pulled the heavy door shut, gasping for air as the SUV accelerated down the street at full speed. 

I wiped the tears from my face and turned around to look at the older woman sitting right next to me in the dim cabin, and my jaw dropped because I recognized her face instantly from all the financial news programs and tech commercials on television.

​"Evelyn Vance?" I gasped, staring at the billionaire tech mogul who was calmly looking at my bleeding feet and my torn hospital gown, and she just handed me a dry towel, saying, "You are safe now, Lysandra, so just breathe, and we will talk about how we are going to fix this."