Chapter 1 - THE WINDOW
Rose Whitmore climbed out a third-floor window minutes before her wedding.
The man she was running from watched on camera.
Gabriel Moretti didn't sound the alarm.
He smiled.
Ten minutes earlier, Rose had stood before a gilded mirror while two hundred guests waited downstairs.
Her father owed two million dollars.
Gabriel would erase the debt, protect Richard Whitmore's failing shipping company, and take control of the southern shipping routes.
In exchange, Richard had promised him his only daughter.
Rose was twenty-five, and apparently that made her old enough to be sold politely.
“Ten minutes, sweetheart,” her mother had said.
“Please don't keep him waiting.”
Nobody was coming to help.
So Rose grabbed the tailor's scissors.
She cut through silk and lace until the gown hung below her knees.
She kicked off her three-thousand-dollar heels, left the diamond necklace on the mahogany vanity, and opened the window.
Three stories.
A rusted fire escape.
No money, no phone, no ID.
“I won't marry him.”
The freezing iron bit into her bare feet.
Halfway down, she slipped and slammed her knee against a landing.
She swallowed a scream and kept going.
At the bottom, she lowered herself from the final rung and dropped into damp cardboard boxes.
For a second, she couldn't breathe.
Then she got up and ran.
In the security room, Cole reached toward the controls.
“Lockdown?”
“No.”
“She's barefoot.”
“I noticed.”
At thirty-eight, Gabriel had spent a month meeting a woman who barely spoke.
Richard had called her agreeable.
Gabriel had found that convenient.
Now the woman on camera was limping through an alley rather than wearing his ring.
His smile faded before she reached Fifth Street.
“Send Marco and Elias,” he said.
“Unmarked cars, two blocks behind.
Nobody approaches unless she's in immediate danger.”
“And the wedding?”
“The guests can wait.”
At the ballroom doors, Richard hurried toward him.
“Where's Rose?”
“Gone.”
“I'll bring her back.”
“You'll do nothing.”
Richard's mouth closed.
Gabriel watched the fear move across his face.
It wasn't the embarrassment of a father with an empty altar.
It looked worse.
Then Cole's message arrived.
BRIDE HEADING TOWARD OLD HARBOR.
Across town, Rose turned into the rain.
Three days earlier, someone had slipped a note into the pocket of her coat.
She had memorized the address before her father took the coat away.
May you like
The note hadn't promised to save her.
It had said: Before you marry him, ask what happened to Daniel Price.
