Chapter 5 - THE MISTRESS WHO WAS AFRAID OF HIM TOO
Gabriel ended the call thirty seconds later.
Christian knew I was gone.
Not where.
Not why.
But the most important advantage we had was over.
Rebecca immediately ordered every phone disconnected from the clinic network.
Marcus was told to move.
Dr. Hart increased private security.
I sat on the edge of my bed and stared at Evie’s photograph.
“Christian knows Richard took her?”
“We don’t know that,” Gabriel said.
“He will.”
Rebecca nodded.
“Eventually.”
“Then Sarah and Evie are in danger.”
Marcus was already arranging protection.
I hated that word.
Protection.
Everyone in my life suddenly required it because I had loved Christian Prescott.
By afternoon, Sarah Whitmore and Evie had been moved to a secure residence outside Louisville.
I was not told the address.
Rebecca insisted.
“For their safety and yours.”
I nearly argued.
Then I stopped.
For years, Christian had treated other people’s choices as obstacles.
I refused to become him simply because I was desperate.
So I waited.
It was the hardest thing I had ever done.
That evening, a call came from a number Gabriel recognized.
Sabrina.
He looked at me.
“She never calls me directly.”
“Answer.”
Gabriel did.
Sabrina didn’t say hello.
“Where is Christian?”
“No idea.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not.”
“His house is empty. His security chief won’t answer. Leo’s nanny was sent home.”
My attention sharpened.
“What happened?” Gabriel asked.
“I don’t know.”
Her voice shook.
“He came here this morning screaming about Genevieve.”
Gabriel looked at me.
“What did he say?”
“That she disappeared.”
Sabrina sounded close to tears.
“Then he asked if I had ever heard the name Claire Donovan.”
My heart stopped.
“He knows,” I whispered.
Gabriel nodded.
Sabrina continued.
“He tore apart my office looking for something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where is Leo?”
“With me.”
“Leave.”
Silence.
“What?”
“Take your son and leave.”
“I can’t.”
Gabriel’s voice sharpened.
“Why?”
“Because Christian froze my accounts.”
I stared.
Sabrina continued.
“He took my passport. He changed the security codes. There are two men downstairs.”
My view of Sabrina shifted.
For years, she had been the woman Christian chose over me.
His secret lover.
Mother of his child.
The woman he planned to marry privately while keeping me publicly trapped.
I had imagined confronting her.
Hating her.
Maybe humiliating her.
Now she sounded exactly like I felt.
Trapped.
Gabriel said, “I can send someone.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Christian will know.”
I reached for Gabriel’s phone.
He hesitated.
I held out my hand.
He gave it to me.
“Sabrina.”
Silence.
Then a whisper.
“Genevieve?”
“Yes.”
“Oh my God.”
“I’m alive.”
She started crying.
Not gracefully.
Not theatrically.
She broke.
“I didn’t know.”
I closed my eyes.
“What didn’t you know?”
“The attack.”
“Did you know he was cheating on me with you?”
“Yes.”
The honesty hurt.
“Did you know about the medical treatments?”
“No.”
“Did you know he planned to keep me dependent after destroying my face?”
“No.”
“Did you know about my pregnancies?”
“Yes.”
My chest tightened.
“How much?”
“He told me you couldn’t carry children.”
I almost laughed.
“Because he made sure of it.”
Sabrina sobbed.
“I swear I didn’t know.”
“Did you know he wanted to marry both of us?”
“I knew he planned to keep you publicly.”
“And you were okay with that?”
Silence.
There was the part she couldn’t escape.
“I loved him.”
“So did I.”
“I thought your relationship was already over.”
“It wasn’t.”
“He told me you slept in separate rooms.”
“We didn’t.”
“He said your engagement was contractual.”
“It wasn’t.”
“He said you knew about me.”
My eyes closed.
Of course he did.
Christian hadn’t merely betrayed two women.
He had built separate realities for us.
“What did he promise you?”
“That after the tour, he’d announce we were together.”
“And Leo?”
“He promised Leo would stop being hidden.”
Her voice cracked.
“My son thinks his father travels too much for work. He doesn’t understand why he can’t tell people who Christian is.”
That hurt.
A four-year-old boy hidden to protect Christian’s image.
Another child arranged around his convenience.
I looked at Rebecca.
She was listening.
“Are you willing to testify?”
Sabrina stopped crying.
“What?”
“Against him.”
“Genevieve…”
“He paid for this.”
I touched my bandage.
“He interfered with my pregnancies. He may be connected to the disappearance of my daughter.”
Sabrina gasped.
“What daughter?”
I explained only enough.
Not location.
Not names.
When I finished, she whispered, “There’s something you need to know.”
My stomach tightened.
“What?”
“Christian keeps recordings.”
“What kind?”
“Everything.”
Gabriel leaned closer.
Sabrina continued.
“Meetings. Arguments. Calls. He says it protects him if anyone tries to blackmail him.”
“Where?”
“His studio.”
Gabriel shook his head.
“Security will be impossible.”
“No.”
Sabrina inhaled.
“Not the public studio.”
“Where?”
“The house in Nashville.”
Gabriel stared.
“What house?”
“He has one under a company name. I’ve been there twice.”
Even Gabriel hadn’t known.
“How do we access it?”
“There’s a hidden office behind the vocal booth.”
“Password?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then how does this help us?”
Sabrina hesitated.
“Because I stole a key.”
Everyone in the room went silent.
“Why?”
“Because three months ago, I started getting scared.”
“What happened?”
“He hit me.”
My anger shifted.
Not sympathy exactly.
Recognition.
“How badly?”
“Enough.”
“Did Leo see?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
Sabrina began crying again.
“Yes.”
I looked at Rebecca.
She nodded once.
Decision made.
We were getting Sabrina and Leo out.
Not because she had been innocent.
She hadn’t.
She had willingly participated in an affair.
She had agreed to a future where I remained a useful public wife.
But none of that meant she deserved violence.
None of it meant Leo deserved to be trapped.
Gabriel arranged the extraction through Marcus.
I hated the word again.
It sounded like a movie.
Nothing about it felt cinematic when a terrified woman had to pretend to put her child to bed while waiting for strangers to remove her from the house.
At 11:20 that night, Sabrina left through a rear service gate disguised in one of the nanny’s coats.
Leo slept against her shoulder.
Christian’s guards noticed the vehicle twelve minutes later.
By then, she was gone.
At 1:00 a.m., she arrived at my clinic.
When Sabrina entered my room, I expected something dramatic.
Jealousy.
Rage.
Maybe the urge to slap her.
Instead, I saw a tired thirty-two-year-old woman holding a sleeping little boy.
She had dark red hair, no makeup, and a fading bruise beneath her collarbone.
Leo’s curls rested against her cheek.
She stared at my bandages.
Then started crying again.
“I’m sorry.”
I looked at the child.
“That’s him?”
She nodded.
Christian’s son.
My almost-stepson in the nightmare future Christian had planned for me.
Leo opened his eyes.
He looked around sleepily.
Then at me.
“Mom?”
Sabrina kissed his forehead.
“It’s okay.”
He stared at the bandages.
“Did you get hurt?”
I swallowed.
“Yes.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Yes.”
He considered this.
Then reached into his pocket and pulled out a tiny plastic dinosaur.
“You can have Rex.”
Sabrina covered her mouth.
I took the dinosaur.
“Thank you.”
“He helps.”
“I believe you.”
Leo rested his head against his mother again.
Within minutes, he was asleep.
Children had an astonishing ability to treat adults’ disasters as background weather.
Sabrina sat across from me.
For the first time, we spoke without Christian between us.
She told me everything.
They had met six years earlier at a charity gala.
An affair began while Christian was dating someone else.
Then he met me.
Sabrina tried to leave.
She became pregnant.
Christian begged her to keep the baby secret until his next album cycle ended.
Then another cycle began.
Then another.
Every promise moved.
Every deadline changed.
He bought her a house.
Paid her expenses.
Kept her away from public events.
When Leo turned three, Sabrina threatened to expose him.
That was when Christian proposed the private wedding.
“And you accepted,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Knowing he was engaged to me.”
“Yes.”
She looked at the floor.
“I don’t have an excuse.”
Good.
I didn’t want one.
“Did you hate me?”
“No.”
“That’s worse.”
“I know.”
She laughed bitterly.
“I tried not to think about you.”
“That’s usually how people live with themselves.”
She accepted the blow.
Then she reached into her purse.
A metal key.
“Nashville.”
Gabriel took it.
Sabrina continued.
“There’s more.”
“What?”
“Christian has been obsessed with his father’s files for years.”
My pulse changed.
“Why?”
“Richard left something when he died.”
“What?”
“A trust.”
“For Leo?”
She shook her head.
“For a girl.”
My heart stopped.
“What girl?”
“I never knew.”
Sabrina looked at me.
“Christian thought his father had hidden money for an illegitimate child.”
Evie.
It had never been money.
It had been protection.
“What happens when Christian discovers the girl is mine?”
Sabrina’s face went pale.
“He already might have.”
“Why?”
“Because two days ago he said something strange.”
“What?”
“He said, ‘If my father stole one child from me, I’ll take back what belongs to me.’”
I went cold.
Evie didn’t belong to him.
She was biologically his.
But Christian had tried to prevent her existence.
Richard had saved her.
Claire had raised her.
Sarah had become her mother.
DNA didn’t give Christian ownership.
Then Gabriel’s phone rang.
Marcus.
He answered.
His expression changed immediately.
“What happened?”
I sat up.
“Gabriel?”
He held up a hand.
Listened.
Then cursed.
Rebecca stood.
“What?”
Gabriel looked at me.
“Sarah’s safe house was breached.”
My entire body stopped.
“Evie?”
He didn’t answer quickly enough.
“WHERE IS MY DAUGHTER?”
Marcus’s voice came through the speaker.
“Sarah was injured.”
“Evie?”
“We’re looking.”
No.
I threw off the blanket.
Dr. Hart rushed forward.
I ignored her.
“Genevieve—”
“No.”
Rebecca grabbed my shoulder.
“Listen.”
I stared at the phone.
Marcus continued.
“One vehicle left before our team arrived.”
My blood turned to ice.
“Who?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Then Sabrina whispered from across the room.
“I do.”
Everyone looked at her.
She stared at her own phone.
A message had appeared.
From Christian.
A photograph.
My daughter sitting in the back seat of a black SUV.
Terrified.
Alive.
May you like
Below it were six words.
BRING SABRINA AND MY SON HOME.
