Chapter 3 - The Shadow on the Porch
The storm didn't let up all night. By sunrise, the mountain fog hung low over the valley, wrapping the town of Blue Ridge in a thick, milky white shroud that muted all sound.
I woke up at six to the sound of thunder rolling over the peaks. My back was stiff, and my baby was kicking aggressively against my ribs, as if sensing my internal restlessness.
I pulled on a thick wool sweater, a pair of dark jeans, and slipped my feet into my leather boots. Walking down the stairs into the cold, silent shop, I felt an odd, prickling sensation at the back of my neck—the distinct feeling of being watched.
I stopped at the bottom step, holding my breath.
The shop was empty. The tall grandfather clocks stood like silent sentinels in the shadows. The air smelled of old paper, lemon oil, and damp wood.
"June?" I called out softly.
No answer. June usually didn't open the front doors until nine, but she lived in a small cottage two streets over and often came in early to start the coffee pot.
I walked to the front window and peered out through the rain-streaked glass.
The street was deserted. The red gravel road had turned into slushy mud. A single yellow leaf drifted down from an oak tree, landing on the hood of a silver pickup truck parked across the road.
Nothing was out of place.
Yet, my skin prickled.
Living with Declan for two years had taught me things I never wanted to know. It had taught me how to spot a tail in a rearview mirror. It had taught me the subtle difference between a tourist taking photos and a man recording exit routes. It had taught me that when the air felt too quiet, danger was usually standing right behind the door.
I turned around and walked back to the workroom. I needed to finish the oil painting today, collect my payment from June, and start looking for a bus ticket out of North Carolina. My instincts were screaming at me to leave.
By noon, the rain had settled into a steady, gray drizzle.
I was sitting on my tall wooden stool, carefully restoring the corner of a gilded frame, when the bell above the shop’s front door chimed.
"Be right with you!" June’s voice called out from the back office.
I stayed in the workroom, keeping my head down. I didn't like being seen by customers.
Footsteps sounded on the hardwood floor of the main showroom. Heavy, deliberate, unhurried footsteps.
Not the quick, shuffling steps of an elderly tourist. Not the light, energetic stride of a local farmer.
These steps measured the space with an absolute, terrifying familiarity.
The air in the workroom suddenly felt thin. My heart hit the back of my throat with such force I nearly dropped my scalpel.
I knew those steps.
I had listened to those exact footsteps coming down the hallway of my Chicago apartment every evening at seven o'clock for two years.
No, my mind pleaded. No, no, no. It's impossible. He couldn't have found me.
I stood up from the stool so fast it knocked against the wooden workbench. My hand flew to my stomach, protectively cradling the firm curve beneath my sweater.
"Amelia."
The voice came from the doorway of the workroom.
It wasn't loud. It wasn't angry. It was low, rich, and utterly commanding—a voice that had commanded hundreds of men, settled multi-million-dollar disputes, and ordered executions without ever raising its pitch.
I turned around slowly, my back pressing against the hard edge of the workbench.
Declan Voss stood in the doorway.
He looked monstrously large in the cramped, narrow space of June’s workroom. He was wearing a tailored black wool coat over a dark charcoal suit, his broad shoulders filling the frame. His dark hair was slightly damp from the rain, pushed back from his forehead. His sharp, angular jaw was covered in a day’s worth of dark stubble—something I had rarely seen in Chicago.
But it was his eyes that stripped the air straight out of my lungs.
They were dark, storm-gray, burning with a lethal combination of exhaustion, relief, and an absolute, terrifying fury.
He didn't look at the paintings. He didn't look at the tools scattered across the table.
His gaze dropped immediately to my hands, then to my waist, and finally settled on the visible round curve of my stomach.
His breath hitched—a tiny, sharp sound that cracked his icy composure for a fraction of a second.
"Declan," I whispered, my voice barely audible over the hum of the rain outside.
He stepped into the room. One slow, deliberate step.
"Don't," I gasped, backing up as far as the workbench would allow. "Don't come near me."
He stopped. His grey eyes snapped back to my face, dark and dangerous.
"Fourteen weeks, Amelia," he said, his voice dropping into a register so dark it sent a violent shiver down my spine. "Fourteen weeks I spent tearing apart every state east of the Mississippi thinking you were dead in a ditch."
"I left," I choked out, trying to keep my voice steady despite the wild panic hammering in my chest. "I left on my own. You know I did."
"I know," he said, taking another step forward. He was six feet away now. I could smell him—the familiar, intoxicating scent of expensive sandalwood, rain, and faint tobacco. "I know you took three thousand dollars in cash, left every piece of jewelry I ever bought you, and bought a ticket to nowhere."
He reached out, his long, gloved fingers tightening around the edge of a tall wooden display case beside him, his knuckles turning white through the leather.
"What I didn't know," he continued, his voice trembling with a terrifying, suppressed emotion, "was why."
"You know why!" I blared, my anger suddenly breaking through the terror. "I heard you, Declan! I was at the tower! I came to tell you... I came to tell you about this!" I slammed my hand against my stomach. "And I heard you standing there with Savannah Calloway, talking about your engagement! Talking about how I was just a civilian who would be resolved quietly!"
Declan froze.
The air in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. The furious heat in his eyes turned into absolute, stunned shock.
"What did you say?" he asked, his voice barely a breath.
"I heard you!" I cried out, tears finally spilling over my eyelashes, hot and fast down my cheeks. "I heard her ask what you were going to do with me! And you told her I would be resolved! In your world, resolved means dead, Declan! Or paid off! Or thrown away!"
Declan stared at me. For three long seconds, the most feared crime boss in Chicago looked completely shattered.
"Amelia..." he whispered, stepping across the remaining distance between us before I could move.
"Get away from me!" I screamed, pushing my hands against his chest.
It was like pushing against a wall of solid granite. He didn't budge. Instead, his gloved hands came up, gently but relentlessly framing my face, forcing me to look up into his storm-gray eyes.
"You idiot," he breathed, his thumb brushing away a tear from my cheek with a tenderness that nearly broke me. "You absolute, foolish, stubborn idiot."
"Don't touch me!"
"Listen to me," he commanded, his forehead leaning down until it almost touched mine, his breath hot against my lips. "Savannah’s father was listening to that conversation on an open line. I was playing a role to keep Victor Calloway from looking at you. 'Resolved' meant moving you to my estate in Switzerland under a fake identity until I finished gutting the Calloway syndicate from the inside out!"
I stared at him, my heart slamming against my ribs. "What?"
"I was never going to marry her, Amelia," Declan growled, his hands sliding down from my face to wrap around my wrists, pulling my hands gently away from his chest. "I set Victor up. The engagement announcement was a trap to force him into signing over his shipping logistics before I handed him to the federal prosecutors."
He dropped to his knees right there on the dirty, dusty floor of the workroom.
The king of Chicago was kneeling at my feet.
His broad hands moved carefully, almost reverently, until both of his palm rested flat against the curve of my pregnant belly.
May you like
He let out a long, ragged exhale, resting his forehead against my stomach, right over the heavy wool of my sweater.
"You carrying my child," he whispered, his voice cracking with an emotion he had never shown to a single living soul. "And you ran away into the woods."
