Chapter 14 - The Escaping Rat
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By evening, Grant returned to his sprawling, silent suburban villa.
He walked into the master bedroom and found Brooke frantically packing two massive Hermès suitcases with stacks of stolen cash, heavy gold jewelry, and dual passports.
She froze like a deer in headlights when she saw his reflection in the mirror.
"Grant," she said, desperately forcing fake tears into her voice, her hands shaking. "It's so bad out there. I think we should leave the country until things calm down. We can go to Paris."
He didn't say a word. He just slowly looked down at the open suitcase on the bed.
Sitting right on top of a stack of hundred-dollar bills were my emerald earrings. The ones my mother had given me.
Grant began to laugh. It was a terrifying, dead sound that scraped against the walls of the room.
"You were leaving me," he realized, staring at her like he was looking at a stranger.
"No! No, baby, I was packing for both of us! I was protecting us!"
"You cut the dress," he stated flatly.
Her eyes flicked to the door, calculating her escape route.
His voice dropped an octave, turning dangerous. "Did you intentionally set the fire, too?"
Brooke’s expression changed. It was just a fraction of a micro-expression. A tiny, guilty twitch of her lip. But Grant finally saw it.
That tiny pause utterly destroyed the last remaining piece of his sanity.
He lunged forward and grabbed her by the arm. She screamed in genuine terror. He ripped her phone out of her hand, smashed it against the bedroom wall, and snatched her passport from the bed.
"You don’t get to leave," he growled, throwing her onto the mattress. "Not until I understand exactly what else you took from me."
He locked her in the room, heading downstairs to pour a drink.
But Brooke Ellison was a survivor, and she had spent her entire life running before the consequences of her actions ever arrived.
By midnight, she had picked the lock, sneaked down into the basement, and pulled a cheap burner phone hidden inside the lining of her winter coat. She dialed a number she knew from her seedy, underground gambling circles.
"Scar," Brooke whispered into the dark, her voice shaking with unhinged rage. "I need a child taken."
The gravelly voice on the other end laughed. "Whose child? It'll cost you."
"Evelyn Whitaker’s daughter."
There was a long pause. "Are you out of your mind? Taking a Whitaker? That sounds like a suicide mission."
Brooke’s voice turned incredibly sharp and wild, her sanity totally fracturing. "Then charge me triple! I want the girl. Evelyn can burn my entire world down for all I care, but she’ll crawl on her hands and knees for her daughter."
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(End of Part 2)
Are you ready for me to generate Chapters 15-20, where the kidnapping takes place and Evelyn unleashes the full, terrifying power of the Whitaker private army to save Maisie?
