Chapter 17 - Shadows of the Third Trimester|
By the eighth month, Manhattan had slipped into the sweltering heat of mid-summer.
Elena’s life had settled into a steady, cautious routine. The legal battles were moving slowly through the courts, and Nico Caruso remained out on a steep ten-million-dollar bail, confined to his residence under electronic monitoring.
Raphael had changed. The domineering, hyper-controlling billionaire hadn't vanished entirely, but he had learned to listen. He no longer sent Marco’s team to shadow her without permission, and he had learned to accept her independence even when his instincts screamed at him to shield her from the world.
One evening, as they sat on the back terrace enjoying the cooler night air, Elena’s phone chimed with an incoming message from an unknown number.
She unlocked the screen.
It was an image.
A high-resolution photograph taken from a long-range lens, showing Elena and Raphael sitting together on that very terrace just a few days prior.
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Beneath the image was a short, unsigned text message:
Bail only keeps a man in his house during the day.
