The man blinked, unsure he’d seen whom he thought he had before the crowd closed behind them.
Banks of slot machines with low-backed stools filled the room in clusters and lines. When Max had been a child dashing through the casino to escape his sitters, this room had held more poker and roulette tables, but slot machines had a higher return on investment per the space allotted.
Slot machines filled too much of the public areas now. He didn’t particularly like them.
Maxence tugged Simone’s hand and pulled her into another alcove. His darkly tanned hand was several shades paler and redder than the cool tones of her black skin where their hands were clasped, and he turned her so he could watch their trail for anyone following them.
The crowd moved in its usual eddies, swirling around the gaming tables and slot machine banks.
No one rushed through the masses in their wake.
Maybe they’d gotten away.
That other man, though.
The other security guy pressing through the crowd had focused on Maxence, not on Simone.
Maxence could have sworn he recognized that guy.
He watched the assembled gamblers for their pursuers and whispered to Simone, “When I sawyouin the casino, I knew something must be wrong. I would’ve bet you’d have stayed on Estebe’s yacht with a good book while he came to the casino for the evening.”
She shook her head. “Convincing him to let me come here was the only way to get away from him. That yacht is practically a prison. He told the staff not to take me to shore on the tenders.”
A tender is a small boat to ferry people to shore and is usually stored in the belly of a large yacht.
While still keeping an eye out, Maxence laid his arm around her shoulders and hugged her like he had when they were at the Swiss boarding school where they’d grown up. “I’m sorry, Simone.”
She buried her face against his shoulder, and her hair tickled his neck above his shirt collar. “He took my phone. I couldn’t even call anyone.”
Phone. GPS Tracking.“You don’t have a phone on you now, do you?”
She spread her arms to the sides, displaying her snug, beaded dress and a micro-tiny purse hanging off her wrist. “He took it away two months ago and won’t let me have one.”
“It’s good that you don’t have one now. I was worried about him tracking a cell phone.”
“Ever since I got pregnant, he’s been domineering and violent,” she mumbled into his shoulder.
Maxence stilled, though he continued to scan the crowd. “You’re pregnant?”
“We decided to have kids. This wasn’t an accident or me springing it on him. I mean, we’ve been married for three years. We weretrying.”
He ducked his head to look at her, and he felt a smile grow on his face. The small swell of her tummy rounded the front of her dress just a little. “You’repregnant?”
“About three months. Maybe I should have stayed. A baby needs a father.”
Maxence straightened and glared at the crowd. “Not an abusive one. Abusers get worse when a woman is pregnant, and then there’s usually domestic violence from then on. It just escalates. You did the right thing to get out. You’re protecting yourself and your baby.”
“I don’t know where to go. I still don’t know what to do.”
“You took the first step, which was the right thing to do. We’ll figure out what to do next.”
“I just want to go home.”
“Mauritius?” he remembered. High school was a while ago.
“I miss it. I miss my sisters. I haven’t been back in years. There was always a reason why Estebe didn’t want me to visit home.”
The reason was that abusers isolate their victims from their families.
