"That's not true?—"
"Isn't it?" Caterina steps forward. "I released the article twenty minutes ago. Photos. Client lists. Every sordid detail of your time as an escort. By morning, every newspaper in New York will have the story. Your students' parents will demand you be fired. Dante's partners will demand he leave you."
No.
No no no?—
"You're lying."
"Am I?" She holds up her phone. Shows me the screen.
It's real. The headline screams across the top:VITALE'S FIANCÉE: SECRET LIFE AS HIGH-END ESCORT EXPOSED.
Below it, photos. Me in evening gowns at expensive restaurants. Me leaving hotels. Me with clients whose faces are blurred but whose identities are barely concealed.
My vision blurs.
Everything. I've lost everything.
My job. My reputation. Any chance with Dante.
"See?" Adrian's hand is on my shoulder now. "This is why we need to leave. Start fresh. I can protect you from all of this."
I look at him. Really look at him.
And I see it. The truth behind the desperation.
"You did this on purpose." My voice is hollow. "You let my mother's care slip. Not because you couldn't pay. Because you wanted to keep me desperate, didn’t you?"
His eyes flicker. Guilt and defiance warring.
"You sabotaged her treatment so I'd stay dependent on you. So I'd never leave."
"I did what I had to do!" His grip tightens. "You were getting too confident. Too independent. I saw the way you looked at other men. The way you talked about teaching like it was more important than us. I needed you to need me."
The confession is a knife.
Every missed payment. Every call from the clinic saying coverage had lapsed. Every night I spent terrified my mother would die because I couldn't afford her care.
He did that. Deliberately. Even before his debt with Dante.
"You're a monster."
"I'm a man in love!" He shakes me. "And you're coming with me whether you like it or not. We have a plane waiting. Two hours from now, we'll be in Mexico. We can disappear. Be together the way we were always meant to be."
"I'd rather die."
His face goes dark. "That can be arranged."
The men holding me start dragging me toward the hangar doors and the tarmac beyond, where the private jet is waiting to steal my life.
I fight. Scream until my throat is raw. Thrash against their hold with everything I have left.
It changes nothing.
They're too strong. Too practiced. Too many. And I'm just one woman with zip-tied wrists and a coat I grabbed without thinking.
My feet scrape against concrete. My shoulders scream from the angle they're holding me. I try to drop my weight, make myself harder to move, but they just lift me. Carry me like I'm nothing.
