Chapter 2 - The Words That Silenced the Ballroom
“My boyfriend hurts me.”
The sentence left my mouth so quietly that I almost thought no one had heard it.
But the ballroom went silent.
Not completely.
The orchestra was still playing near the windows.
Glasses still clinked at the bar.
Yet the circle around us seemed to freeze.
Nolan’s face changed first.
The charming smile disappeared.
“You don’t know what you’re saying, Evelyn.”
Dante Moretti’s hand remained at my waist.
He never looked at Nolan.
He looked at me.
“Do you want to leave with him?”
“No.”
It was the first time I had answered that question honestly.
Dante finally turned toward Nolan.
“Then she doesn’t.”
Nolan gave a nervous laugh.
“This is a misunderstanding between us.”
Dante’s expression didn’t move.
“She said no.”
“She’s upset.”
“She said no.”
“She’s my girlfriend.”
Dante tilted his head slightly.
“Is that supposed to make her your property?”
A few people nearby suddenly became very interested in their champagne.
Nolan stepped closer.
That was his mistake.
Two men in dark suits moved from the edge of the ballroom before Dante even lifted a finger.
Nolan stopped.
I recognized one of them.
Marco Bellini.
Dante’s longtime security chief.
Everyone in Chicago’s business world knew his face.
Nolan knew it too.
His confidence cracked.
Dante leaned closer to me.
“Do you have somewhere safe to go tonight?”
I thought about my apartment.
Nolan had a key.
My sister lived in Milwaukee.
My parents thought Nolan was wonderful.
“No.”
Dante nodded once.
“Then you’re coming with me.”
Nolan’s face turned red.
“You can’t just take her.”
Dante finally smiled.
It wasn’t friendly.
“I’m not taking anyone.”
Then he looked at me.
“You decide.”
That word hit harder than anything else.
Decide.
For nearly two years, Nolan had slowly removed that word from my life.
What I wore.
Who I saw.
Where I worked.
When I slept.
What I was allowed to call an argument.
Tonight, an alleged criminal was giving me something my respectable boyfriend never had.
A choice.
“I’m going with him.”
Nolan stared at me.
“You walk out that door, Evelyn, don’t bother coming back.”
I swallowed.
“That’s the idea.”
For the first time, I saw genuine panic behind his anger.
Not heartbreak.
Panic.
Then Nolan said something that made Dante’s entire expression change.
“You think Moretti can protect you from what you signed?”
I froze.
Dante looked down at me.
“What did you sign?”
“I don’t know.”
Nolan smiled again.
And suddenly I understood why he had been dragging me out of the ballroom.
He hadn’t only been afraid I would expose what he did to me.
May you like
He was afraid I would discover what he had done using my name.
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