Chapter 5 - The Frozen Empire

The dead dial tone hummed in my ear like a quiet funeral dirge.

My own trusted lawyer had completely sold me out for a piece of the massive Morgan family empire.

The two fixers reached my car and tapped a heavy metal flashlight against the driver’s side glass.

The reinforced glass spider-webbed dangerously, threatening to shatter completely with just one more strike.

I absolutely knew that if I got into their black sedan, I would never be seen alive again.

I grabbed my heavy leather purse and scrambled frantically over the center console to the passenger side.

I kicked the passenger door open with both feet, sending it flying hard into a stack of empty wooden pallets.

I scrambled out into the freezing rain and sprinted blindly down the narrow, trash-filled alleyway.

I heard the heavy, rhythmic thud of their tactical boots chasing me through the deep puddles.

I darted through the rusted back door of a chaotic commercial kitchen, pushing past screaming chefs and flying pans.

I burst out the front entrance of the busy restaurant and threw my body into a waiting taxi at the curb.

I screamed at the startled driver to hit the gas, throwing a crumpled hundred-dollar bill at the plastic partition.

We sped away just as the two fixers emerged from the restaurant, their cold eyes locked on my fading taillights.

I collapsed back into the worn leather seat, gasping desperately for clean air.

I pulled out my laptop and frantically logged into my highly secure private business accounts.

I needed to wire my design studio’s funds to an offshore shell account before Luke realized I was truly gone.

The digital loading screen spun endlessly before a bright red error message flashed aggressively across the screen.

Account Frozen.

I desperately tried my personal savings, my emergency credit cards, and even my small investment portfolio.

Frozen, frozen, completely frozen.

Luke hadn't just tracked my physical location; he had completely dismantled my independent wealth in less than an hour.

He was systematically stripping away every single resource I had until I was forced to crawl back to him on my knees.

I told the confused taxi driver to drop me off at a cheap, run-down motel near the central train station.

I paid him with the absolute last bit of physical cash I had hidden in my wallet.

I sat alone in a dingy room that smelled strongly like stale cigarette smoke and desperation.

I was pregnant, entirely broke, and hunted by the most dangerous man in the city.

My burner phone suddenly buzzed loudly with a text message from an unknown number.

May you like

Nine years after a car bomb killed his wife

Nearly two hundred people watched me stand alone

I was less than an hour away from proposing to another woman

The message stated that if I wanted my money back, I needed to meet the sender at the shipping docks in exactly one hour.

Attached to the cryptic message was a live video feed of my studio's bank accounts, fully unlocked and ready to transfer.