Chương 2
A change of clothes.
Baby blankets.
Documents.
A small notebook where I had written questions for the doctors because I was terrified I would forget something.
My hands shook as I placed it beside the door.
Then I looked down at my wedding ring.
For years, I believed taking it off would feel like losing something.
Instead, it felt like finally admitting something was already gone.
I removed it slowly.
The empty space on my finger looked unfamiliar.
My phone lit up.
A message.
No name.
Just a photo.
Roman stood outside a restaurant downtown.
Claire was wrapped around him.
His arms were around her.
People were walking past them.
A few recognized him.
A few looked away.
That was the strange thing about powerful men.
People often saw exactly what they wanted to ignore.
I stared at the picture until my screen went dark.
Then I opened my contacts.
My thumb stopped over Roman’s name.
I could have called.
I could have screamed.
I could have demanded an explanation.
Instead, I did something that surprised even me.
I blocked his number.
The silence afterward was almost frightening.
For the first time in years, there was nothing coming from him.
No instructions.
No excuses.
No carefully chosen words designed to make me doubt myself.
I sat on the edge of the bed and placed both hands over my stomach.
“Mommy’s sorry,” I whispered.
The words came out before I could stop them.
Not because I had done something wrong.
Because I had waited too long to protect the life growing inside me.
A few minutes later, Margaret knocked softly.
She stepped inside carrying a cup of tea.
“You need to leave,” she said.
I looked up.
“What?”
Her expression was serious.
“You need to get somewhere safe before he comes back.”
I looked around the room.
“This is my home.”
Margaret sat beside me.
“No, sweetheart.”
Her voice broke slightly.
“It’s his house.”
I hated that she was right.
The truth was harder to accept because it had always been there.
Roman owned the property.
Roman owned the company.
Roman controlled the security team.
Roman had friends in places where ordinary people needed help.
But there was one thing he had forgotten.
He did not own my decision.
Outside, snow continued falling over the estate.
Inside, I packed the last few things I needed.
I left the ring beneath the Christmas tree where he would see it.
I left the nursery door open.
And before midnight, while the city celebrated and Roman believed he was still in control, I walked out of the house carrying my hospital bag and the one thing he had never learned how to take from me.
The ability to choose.
The first place I thought of was my sister's apartment in Evanston.
I had not called her in almost six months.
Not because we had fought.
Not because I stopped loving her.
Because Roman had slowly convinced me that people outside our marriage did not understand our life.
He never ordered me to cut anyone off.
He was too careful for that.
He simply made every conversation exhausting until I stopped trying.
When I complained about my sister asking too many questions, he looked hurt and said, "I just don't understand why everyone thinks they know what's best for us."
Eventually, I started protecting his feelings before I noticed I was abandoning my own.
The drive through the snow felt longer than it should have.
Margaret drove because my hands were still trembling.
She kept both hands on the wheel and stared straight ahead.
"You should have told someone sooner," she said quietly.
I looked out the passenger window.
"I know."
"No, Savannah."
Her voice was gentle, but it carried disappointment.
"You know now."
The distinction hurt.
I had spent years believing awareness was the same as action.
It was not.
The city lights appeared in the distance, blurred through falling snow.
People were walking with shopping bags.
Families were leaving restaurants.
Couples stood outside apartment buildings holding gifts and laughing.
The world looked painfully normal.
That was the cruel thing about betrayal.
Nothing outside changed.
Traffic still moved.
Stores still opened.
People still complained about parking spaces and cold weather.
Meanwhile, a person could feel their entire life collapse in the back seat of a car.
Margaret parked outside my sister's building just before midnight.
I sat there for almost a full minute without moving.
"You want me to come upstairs?" she asked.
I looked at her.
The woman who had worked for my family for eleven years.
The woman who had helped me choose baby clothes.
The woman who knew when I was pretending to be happy.
"No," I whispered.
"I need to do this myself."
She nodded slowly.
Before I opened the door, she reached over and squeezed my hand.
"Being afraid doesn't mean you're wrong."
I swallowed.
"I should have known."
Margaret looked at me for a long moment.
"That sentence is going to hurt you more than Roman ever could."
I carried my bag upstairs.
My sister opened the door before I knocked twice.
Lena had always done that.
She never waited for permission to worry.
She stood there wearing old sweatpants, a Christmas movie playing quietly behind her, and an expression that changed the second she saw my face.
"What happened?"
I tried to answer.
Nothing came out.
Then she pulled me inside.
Not dramatically.
Not with tears or shouting.
Just with the simple certainty of someone who had loved me before I became someone else's wife.
"You can explain later," she said.
"Right now, you're freezing."
I cried then.
Not loudly.
Not the kind of crying people do in movies.
Just the exhausted kind where your body finally stops holding everything in.
Lena did not ask for details.
She did not say she had warned me.
She did not remind me of every time she told me Roman made her uncomfortable.
May you like
That almost made it worse.
Because part of me wanted to be punished.
