Chapter 4 - SAVANNAH WAS NOT MY ENEMY
I should not have cared whether Savannah Calloway lived.
That was the ugly thought I refused to say aloud.
She was the woman whose engagement announcement had sent me running.
The woman who called me after stealing my medical information.
The woman whose voice had turned my unborn child into a threat.
But when I looked at the photograph of her bound on that floor, I did not see a rival.
I saw another woman trapped inside decisions made by powerful men.
“Who took her?” I asked.
Declan’s mouth hardened.
“Patrick.”
“Why?”
“To force me to return.”
“With me.”
“Yes.”
“So Savannah was working with him?”
“No.”
I looked at Gavin.
He confirmed it.
“Her father was involved in the original ledger theft. Savannah wasn’t.”
My stomach twisted.
“She called me.”
Declan’s eyes narrowed.
“When?”
I told him.
He listened without interrupting.
“She knew about the pregnancy.”
“She guessed.”
“After someone accessed my records.”
Gavin opened another file.
“The hospital breach came from Patrick’s network, not Savannah.”
“Then how did she get my number?”
Declan’s face turned cold.
“Probably from Patrick.”
Pieces shifted.
“She was trying to scare me.”
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t make her innocent.”
“No,” Declan said. “But it doesn’t make her responsible for her father.”
I looked at him.
Interesting.
A mafia boss acknowledging children were not responsible for their parents.
“Why did Savannah agree to marry you?”
Declan glanced at Gavin.
Then answered.
“Because her father threatened her younger brother.”
I went still.
“What?”
“Eli Calloway is nineteen. Savannah has protected him since their mother died.”
“So she agreed to the alliance.”
“Yes.”
“And you?”
“I agreed to pretend.”
I laughed bitterly.
“You really do solve everything by keeping women uninformed.”
Declan absorbed the blow.
“I deserved that.”
Another surprise.
Then the secure line rang.
Patrick.
Declan answered on speaker.
“Uncle.”
Patrick laughed softly.
“Still using that word?”
“For the moment.”
“Bring Amelia.”
“No.”
“Then Savannah dies.”
“That would start a war with Calloway.”
“Calloway is finished.”
Declan’s eyes sharpened.
“What did you do?”
“Victor Calloway had an unfortunate heart attack this evening.”
Gavin immediately started typing.
Patrick continued.
“Savannah is now useful only as leverage.”
I felt sick.
“Let me speak to her,” Declan said.
Movement.
Then Savannah’s voice.
“Declan?”
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Where are you?”
“I don’t know.”
Patrick shouted something.
Savannah rushed her next words.
“Amelia, if you can hear me, don’t come.”
I froze.
“You knew I was listening?”
“I hoped.”
Her breathing shook.
“I’m sorry I called you. I thought you were his weakness. I was angry. My father had spent months telling me women like us survive by finding leverage before men use ours.”
Patrick grabbed the phone.
“That’s enough.”
Declan’s voice turned deadly.
“If you touch her—”
“What?”
Patrick laughed.
“You’ll kill me? Eventually perhaps.”
Then his tone changed.
“But first you’ll choose.”
“Between what?”
“Your empire and the woman carrying your child.”
Declan said nothing.
Patrick continued.
“Come to Chicago by midnight tomorrow. Bring Amelia. Sign over the trust rights triggered by the child.”
“That trust can’t be transferred.”
“Not directly.”
“Then you know this is pointless.”
“No.”
Patrick sounded amused.
“There is one provision your father never told you about.”
Declan’s face changed.
“What provision?”
“If the mother of the first Voss heir legally disclaims the child’s interest before birth, succession reverts to the collateral family line.”
Patrick.
His branch.
My hand covered my belly.
“So you need my signature,” I said.
Silence.
Then Patrick laughed.
“There she is.”
Declan stepped toward the phone.
“You speak to her again and—”
“Calm down, nephew.”
Patrick ignored him.
“Amelia, come willingly, sign one page, and you can disappear with your baby forever.”
I looked at Declan.
His face gave nothing away.
Patrick continued.
“Refuse, and people will keep dying around you.”
The call ended.
For a moment, silence filled the safe house.
Then I asked Declan:
“Would my signature really do that?”
He did not answer quickly.
My heart sank.
“It would.”
I stared at him.
“Then why didn’t you tell me about the trust when you first found out I was pregnant?”
“Because I learned about the provision ten minutes ago.”
I believed him.
Then Gavin spoke.
“There’s another problem.”
“What?”
He turned his tablet around.
Patrick had not merely kidnapped Savannah.
He had released information to three rival families.
Amelia Bennett is carrying Declan Voss’s heir.
May you like
My anonymity was gone.
By sunrise, every dangerous person in Chicago would know exactly what I carried inside me.
