Chapter 3 - The Walls Close In
Sunday at the Russo estate felt less like a day of rest and more like a psychological siege.
Norah spent the morning in the sunroom with Lily, building elaborate castles out of wooden blocks while her mind spun in frantic circles. Every time a guard walked past the French doors, every time the heavy iron security gate chimed in the distance, a cold spike of adrenaline shot through her veins.
Dr. Vance is out, she reminded herself. For now. But Dominic is watching.
She couldn't stay. That realization settled into her bones with the heavy, unyielding certainty of an anchor dropping to the ocean floor. If she remained inside the compound, it was only a matter of days—perhaps a week—before Dominic discovered the ultrasound, or before Dr. Aris’s notes were intercepted by one of his informants. A criminal mastermind like Dominic Russo did not maintain an empire by ignoring anomalies, and a nanny suddenly developing a "benign abdominal mass" that caused her waistline to expand was an anomaly he would investigate to its absolute conclusion.
"Norah? You’re knocking down the wall!"
Lily’s voice pulled her back to the present. The little girl was staring up at her with big, accusing dark eyes, holding a fallen wooden cylinder.
Norah blinked, realizing her trembling hand had swept across the wooden fortress they had spent an hour constructing.
"I'm sorry, Bug," Norah said softly, forcing a shaky smile as she reached out to pat Lily’s dark curls. "My mind was somewhere else."
"Are you sick?" Lily asked, her small brow furrowing with a maturity that felt entirely too heavy for a four-year-old. "Daddy said you have a tummy boo-boo."
"Just tired, sweetie. Grown-up tired."
"My daddy can fix anything," Lily declared with absolute, childish faith. "He fixed the big truck that crashed into the gate. He can fix your boo-boo too."
Norah’s heart clenched painfully. If your daddy finds out what’s in my belly, Bug, he won't fix it. He’ll take it away.
In Dominic’s world, heirs were born into syndicates, locked into bloodlines, and raised behind fortress walls. A child carrying the blood of a Russo could never simply walk away. She would become a prisoner of war before she even drew her first breath, bound to a father who viewed human beings as either assets or liabilities.
That night, after Lily was fast asleep in her nursery and the house had settled into its midnight hush, Norah executed her plan.
She crept into her small ground-floor bedroom, locking the door behind her with a silent click. She didn't turn on the overhead light; she relied solely on the silver moonlight filtering through the windowpanes.
From beneath her mattress, she pulled out a worn canvas duffel bag—the same one she had arrived with five months ago.
Inside sat her meager savings: four hundred and twelve dollars in cash scraped together from tips and extra shifts before she took the job, wrapped inside a dirty sock. Beside it lay the folded slip of glossy thermal paper from the clinic.
She pulled out the ultrasound printout.
In the dim light, she traced the tiny profile of her baby with the pad of her thumb. A tear slipped down her cheek, catching the moonlight before disappearing into the fabric of her collar.
"I'm sorry," she whispered into the empty room. "We have to go. We have to run before he finds us."
She began stuffing her clothes into the bag—two pairs of jeans, three thrift-store sweaters, a handful of socks. But as she reached for her heavy winter coat hanging behind the door, the bedroom doorknob turned.
It didn't rattle. It didn't jiggle.
It turned smoothly, silently.
The door was unlocked.
Norah froze, her blood turning to ice water in her veins. The duffel bag dropped from her trembling fingers, hitting the hardwood floor with a dull, muffled thud.
The door pushed open.
Dominic Russo stood in the doorway.
He wasn't wearing his suit jacket or his work boots. He wore a simple black t-shirt and dark lounge pants, his dark hair slightly rumpled as if he had been running his hands through it in frustration.
His slate-gray eyes didn't look at Norah’s face.
May you like
They looked past her.
They looked down at the open duffel bag on the floor, half-filled with clothes, and the small canvas pouch of cash spilling out onto the rug.
