After twenty minutes in the rain, shivering so bad I thought my bones would snap, my mother finally pulled up in a car. She threw a blanket over me and practically dragged me inside. I was half-conscious, teeth chattering, but I felt her hands guiding me, steady and warm.
She drove straight into the city and checked us into some fancy hotel. Five-star, marble floors, chandeliers, people bowing when she walked past. She made me sit on the couch, handed me warm tea, and brushed my wet hair off my face like I was a child. “Rest, Lesley. I’ll take care of everything,” she said. “I’m not the woman you remember. I’m a billionaire now. I can move people like pieces on a board. You don’t have to worry about a thing.”
For the first time in days, I let myself breathe. My chest loosened. I whispered, “Thanks, Mum.”
Later that night, when the suite went quiet, we sat by the window. City lights glowed below us. She told me she could buy influence, make calls, bend the world if she had to. She sipped wine and said, “If you want to disappear, I have people who can make that happen.”
I stared at my shaking hands. “Can you… fake my death?”
“Yeah. Easy. I already know the right people.”