Chapter 3 - The Woman in the Back RoomThe back bedroom was cramped, lit only by a cheap bedside lamp with a frayed cord. On the narrow cot lay a woman who looked far older than her thirty-two years. Her skin was pale and damp with sweat, her breathing shallow and ragged.
Dylan froze in the doorway.
Even through the exhaustion, the fever, and the deep hollows beneath her cheekbones, he recognized her face.
“Rachel...” Dylan breathed.
Ten years ago, before Dylan had built Carter Ventures into a global tech titan, before the billions and the penthouses, he had known a brilliant young architectural designer at Ashcroft Engineering named Rachel Vance. She had been sharp, fiercely talented, and engaged to a rising star in the firm. Then, overnight, she vanished. Rumor had it she had stolen proprietary blueprints and fled the country.
Rachel stirred, her heavy eyelids fluttering open. She stared blankly at the ceiling before turning her head toward the doorway.
Her fever-bright eyes widened as they locked onto Dylan.
“Dylan...?” she rasped, her voice like dry sandpaper. “What... what are you doing here?”
Dylan rushed to the bedside, kneeling on the cold floor and taking her burning, calloused hand in his. The last time he had seen those hands, they were drafting skyscrapers. Now, they were rough from scrubbing floors and cleaning hotel rooms.
“I saw your daughters at the grocery store, Rachel,” Dylan said, his voice thick with a raw emotion he hadn't felt in years. “What happened to you? Why are you living like this? Why are you hiding?”
Rachel let out a weak, bitter laugh that turned into a violent fit of coughing. Laya instantly stepped forward, holding a glass of water with a straw, which Rachel sipped gratefully.
“I wasn't hiding, Dylan,” Rachel whispered, closing her eyes as a tear slipped down her temple. “I was running. And I was protecting them.”
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“Protecting them from whom?”
Rachel opened her eyes, staring straight into Dylan’s soul with a terrifying intensity. “From Jonathan Ashcroft.”
