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Chapter_105
The fog pressed down like a shroud, blanketing the streets in silence and shadow. Whitney stood frozen at the intersection, her pulse racing as the police officer’s gaze settled firmly on her. The e-bike, now silent and useless beneath her, had betrayed her at the worst possible moment—cutting out just as she thought she might make it to freedom.
She hadn’t planned on disappearing forever. Not yet. She just needed space. A breath that didn’t feel owned. A moment where Ludwik’s voice wasn’t in her ears, wasn’t inside her chest like a weight she couldn’t shake. But now, her hope thinned with every second, draining away beneath the officer’s scrutiny.
“No phone, no ID, no wallet?” he repeated, frowning. “What exactly are you doing out here?”
Whitney’s throat tightened. She had nothing—just the clothes on her back and a sense of desperation so raw it felt like it might tear her open. Her mind screamed with the echoes of the last six days: Ludwik’s fury, his possessive grip, Elaine’s cold, knowing smile.
She couldn’t go back. Not now.
The officer pulled out his phone, his fingers hovering over the screen. Panic coiled in Whitney’s stomach. This was it. She was going to be dragged back before she could even reach the one person she trusted—Tiana. Her chest burned with the effort to keep breathing.
Then, from the mist, a figure emerged.
A stranger, phone in hand, eyes gentle and curious. “Are you going to keep standing here,” he asked softly, “or do you need help?”
Whitney blinked, stunned by the sudden kindness. “I… I need to get to my friend’s house,” she managed to say, her voice trembling. “Can you call someone for me? Please?”
The man nodded without hesitation. “Stay here.”
He stepped aside and spoke into his phone, firm and calm. “Yeah. I’ve got someone with me. She needs help—now. It’s urgent. We’re just off the main road, by the fog line.”
Relief hit her like a wave, buckling her knees. For the first time in what felt like forever, she wasn’t alone. Maybe—just maybe—she was going to make it out.
Meanwhile, back at the villa, the walls seemed to vibrate with tension.
Taryn stood rigid near the doorway, his voice tight with apprehension. “She’s gone, sir.”
The words struck Ludwik like a blow to the chest.
Gone.
The timing was perfect—in the worst possible way. His mother lay ill upstairs, her condition fragile. And Whitney had used that opening to vanish. Rage surged through him, bitter and volcanic, but beneath it, something colder curled in his gut. She ran because of me.
He turned slowly, eyes hard. “Who let her out?”
“No one let her out,” Taryn said quickly. “She slipped away. Left everything behind.”
Ludwik clenched his jaw. She had nothing. No money. No phone. No security. Just the will to get away from him.
Elaine’s laughter drifted into his mind like poison.
Of course. She had waited for this. She’d fanned the flames and watched them burn—watched him burn.
“Where is she?” Ludwik demanded, voice low and dangerous.
Elaine stepped into view from the hallway, composed as ever. “If I had to guess…” She shrugged. “Tiana Melford’s place. You know she’d run straight to her.”
Her lips curled into a sly, satisfied smile.
“You planned this,” Ludwik hissed.
Elaine’s expression didn’t change. “I didn’t plan anything, darling. You did this all by yourself.”
His chest heaved with the effort to contain himself. The thought of Whitney out there, frightened and alone, struck something deeper than anger. It scraped against guilt, against the ache he’d tried to bury—the look in her eyes when she’d begged him to let her go.
He turned on his heel. “Get the car. Now. And send a team to sweep the area around Melford’s.”
“Ludwik,” Elaine said, almost mockingly, “you might want to think twice before going after her like this. She’s not yours to hunt.”
He didn’t answer. He was already moving.
In the distance, Whitney sat in the back of a car, wrapped in a borrowed coat, watching the streets blur through the window. The man beside her—still nameless, still kind—had offered no questions, only quiet reassurance that help was on its way.
She held on to that silence like a lifeline. Her escape had barely begun, and already, the road ahead felt fraught with shadows. But in this brief, stolen moment, there was peace. Tiana’s place was just a few miles away.
There, she could breathe again.
There, she could be herself again.
But even as the city lights began to flicker through the fog, she knew—deep in her bones—that Ludwik wouldn’t let go so easily.
And neither, she realized with a pang, would she.
