I pressed the receiver harder to my ear, trying to steady my voice. “But my… my identity. The paperwork. It takes three days to sort. And I can’t exactly cross state lines quietly. Drake… he won’t let me leave, I know him.”
His voice softened, “How do you plan to leave New York without him noticing? You know him, Chloe. Drake is territorial. Possessive. He’d know the moment you stepped a foot outside the glass house gates.”
I swallowed hard. “Then… I’ll make sure he only gets my corpse.” The words felt hollow, but at least they burned with the truth. If he could let Chiara pretend to be me, then I could vanish from his life entirely.
And then it happened. Warm, large hands wrapped around my waist, pressing me tight against someone. My breath caught.
“Wife,” Drake’s voice trembled as he buried his head in my shoulder. “Thank God! Thank God you’re alive. If anything had happened to you… I wouldn’t even want to live. I… I can’t—”
I froze, my mind screaming at me to push him off, to run, but I couldn’t.