Chapter 2 - THE SECURITY FOOTAGE
Z
Adrian didn’t sleep that night.
I learned that weeks later from Maria, our housekeeper.
Apparently, after discovering I had left the country, my husband stood in the foyer for almost a full minute without speaking.
That was unusual for Adrian.
Silence around him normally meant everyone else was afraid.
This time, according to Maria, the fear belonged to him.
“Where did she go?” he demanded.
“I don’t know, sir.”
“What did she take?”
“One suitcase.”
“My wife owns three closets.”
“She took one suitcase.”
That detail bothered him more than it should have.
Maybe because people planning temporary tantrums packed differently.
I hadn’t taken jewelry.
I hadn’t taken gowns.
I hadn’t taken the Aston Martin Adrian bought me for our anniversary.
I had taken the things belonging to Claire Bennett.
Not Claire Moretti.
Then Adrian walked upstairs.
My side of the closet was nearly untouched.
My wedding ring sat inside the velvet box where I had left it.
Maria said Adrian stared at it for so long she eventually closed the bedroom door and left him alone.
By midnight, he was at Moretti Tower.
That was where he made his first real mistake.
He asked for the ballroom security footage.
Adrian had expected to torture himself by watching the shove again.
Instead, he discovered something else.
The cameras had recorded Sofia arriving almost forty minutes before me.
They showed her walking toward the display table.
Looking around.
Touching my grandmother’s vase.
Then deliberately sliding it closer to the edge.
She walked away.
Returned seven minutes later.
Spoke to a waiter.
Then, when Adrian entered the ballroom across the room, Sofia backed into the table.
The vase fell.
Her hand wasn’t anywhere near it.
It had never been an accident.
Adrian watched the recording three times.
On the fourth, he noticed something worse.
After the vase shattered, Sofia smiled.
Barely.
Only for a second.
But she smiled.
“Bring her to me.”
Those four words were apparently enough to empty an entire floor of Moretti Tower.
Sofia arrived forty-five minutes later.
She wore a cream coat, expensive boots, and the frightened expression she had perfected since becoming Adrian’s executive secretary eight months earlier.
“Mr. Moretti?”
He pointed at the screen.
She looked.
Her face changed.
Only slightly.
But Adrian noticed.
“Explain.”
“Explain what?”
“You moved the vase.”
“I was making room.”
“You moved it toward the edge.”
“I didn’t realize—”
“You checked the room first.”
Sofia swallowed.
“Mr. Moretti, Claire has always hated me.”
Adrian stood.
“That isn’t an answer.”
“She was jealous.”
“Another sentence about my wife and you’ll regret coming into this building.”
The words stunned her.
For eight months, Adrian had defended Sofia constantly.
That was how manipulation worked.
It rarely began with something obvious.
Sofia’s father, Carlo Russo, had worked for Adrian’s family for twenty-three years before dying in a warehouse fire.
Adrian felt responsible.
Carlo had once saved Adrian’s father.
So when Sofia needed employment, Adrian gave her a position she wasn’t qualified for.
When senior staff complained about her mistakes, he protected her.
When Sofia cried about being bullied by executives, he believed her.
When I warned him she was becoming too familiar, he accused me of insecurity.
Sofia understood Adrian’s weakness better than I did.
Guilt.
“Did you break that vase on purpose?”
She began crying.
“I just wanted her to stop treating me like I didn’t belong.”
Adrian’s expression went completely still.
“That vase belonged to her grandmother.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You were told.”
Silence.
Then Adrian asked a question that destroyed whatever remained of Sofia’s performance.
“Why did you grab my arm when Claire fell?”
Sofia stared at him.
“What?”
“She was bleeding. I moved toward her. You stopped me.”
“I was scared.”
“Of what?”
“I don’t know.”
“I do.”
Adrian walked around the desk.
“You wanted me to choose you.”
Sofia shook her head quickly.
“No.”
“You wanted her to see it.”
“No.”
“And I gave you exactly what you wanted.”
That part mattered.
Because Adrian could have blamed Sofia for everything.
He didn’t.
Maybe that was the first decent thing he did after destroying our marriage.
The shove was his.
Walking away was his.
Choosing another woman over his wife was his.
Manipulation explained behavior.
It didn’t erase responsibility.
Adrian fired Sofia before sunrise.
She lost access to Moretti Tower, his residence, company accounts, and every property under his control.
But Sofia did not leave quietly.
“You’re doing this because she ran away?”
Adrian’s eyes hardened.
“My wife didn’t run.”
“She left you.”
“Yes.”
Sofia’s mouth tightened.
“She’ll come back.”
Adrian said nothing.
“You know she will. Women like Claire always come back when they realize how comfortable their lives were.”
That was apparently when Adrian smiled.
Not kindly.
“Sofia, Claire had money before she married me.”
“She didn’t have your money.”
“She never cared about my money.”
“Everyone cares.”
“No.”
He looked at the frozen image of me on the ballroom floor.
“That was the problem.”
Sofia frowned.
Adrian continued.
“I spent three years giving her everything except the one thing she actually asked for.”
“What?”
“To know she came first.”
He ordered security to escort Sofia out.
At six that morning, while Chicago woke beneath a layer of snow, Adrian called every private aviation company he controlled.
He asked about flights to Canada.
Toronto.
Montreal.
Vancouver.
Nothing.
I had flown commercial.
Economy, in fact.
The idea apparently offended him.
Not because of the seat.
Because he hadn’t predicted it.
For years, Adrian had known everything about me.
My schedule.
My driver.
My appointments.
My security detail.
He had confused surveillance with intimacy.
Now he couldn’t even find his wife.
Meanwhile, I was sitting in a Toronto café eating blueberry pancakes.
My first morning alone felt strange.
Nobody checked the street before I entered.
Nobody stood near the door with a concealed weapon.
Nobody whispered into an earpiece.
The waitress asked whether I wanted more coffee.
“Yes, please.”
That was when a woman sitting at the neighboring table looked at me twice.
She was around fifty, silver-blond hair pulled into a knot, red glasses balanced low on her nose.
“Claire Bennett?”
My stomach tightened.
I considered lying.
Then she smiled.
“My God. You look exactly like Margaret.”
I stopped breathing.
Margaret had been my grandmother’s name.
“You knew my grandmother?”
The woman stood.
“I was her business partner.”
I stared at her.
“My grandmother was a school librarian.”
The woman laughed softly.
“No, sweetheart.”
She pulled out the empty chair.
“Margaret Bennett was many things.”
May you like
Then she said the sentence that changed my reason for coming to Toronto.
“And apparently, she never told you why she made me promise to help you if you ever escaped Chicago.”
