Chapter 5 - The First Heartbeat and the Shadow in the Rain
The tire tracks belonged to no delivery truck. They were too wide, too heavy, and they ended abruptly fifty yards down the tree line where someone had parked, watched the cottage, and reversed without turning on their headlights.
Panic became my constant companion. I couldn't stay in the house all day without losing my mind, so I scheduled my first prenatal checkup at a quiet clinic forty miles south in Brunswick under my false alias.
Sitting in the dim examination room, the cold ultrasound gel felt shocking against my bare stomach. The elderly obstetrician, Dr. Miller, smiled warmly as she adjusted the monitor.
“Let’s see how our little traveler is doing,” she murmured.
A moment later, a rhythmic, galloping sound filled the small room—fast, powerful, and undeniably alive.
Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump.
My breath hitched. It was the most beautiful music in the universe. On the grainy black-and-white screen, the shape of a tiny human being appeared: curled tightly, kicking a minuscule foot into the void.
“Strong heartbeat, 155 beats per minute,” Dr. Miller said, her eyes crinkling. “Growing right on schedule. Would you like to know the gender?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Yes. Please.”
“You’re having a little girl, Clara.”
A daughter. A little girl with my eyes and perhaps Roman’s stubborn chin. A daughter who would never have to grow up surrounded by men with submachine guns hidden beneath Italian wool.
Dr. Miller handed me three printed ultrasound photographs. I held them against my chest as I walked out into the pouring afternoon rain, clutching them as if they were made of spun gold.
I walked toward my Subaru in the back of the medical complex parking lot. The storm was ferocious, turning the sky into bruised slate.
As I reached for my car door handle, a tall figure stepped out from the dense pine trees bordering the lot. He wore an oilskin duster, water cascading off the brim of his cap.
“Mrs. Carter,” a voice called through the roar of the rain.
It wasn't Roman. It wasn't Sofia.
It was Dante Moretti—Julian Bennett’s right-hand enforcer.
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“Mr. Bennett sent his warmest regards,” Dante smiled, drawing a suppressed pistol from beneath his coat. “He wants to know if the Carter heir is healthy enough to negotiate a trade.”
I threw my purse directly into his face, screamed with every ounce of oxygen in my lungs, and bolted toward the busy main road.
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