Chapter 4 - Under the Radar
My water had broken on the hardwood floor amid the scattered glass and pink punch. The sudden, violent adrenaline surge had triggered labor nearly four weeks ahead of my due date.
""We can't call an ambulance,"" Julianna cried out, pacing the ruined living room while wringing her hands. ""Marcus's team had scanners on the local emergency dispatch. If paramedics show up here, the cleanup crew will know Marcus failed. They'll come back with automatic rifles and burn this place to the ground!""
""Shut up, Julianna!"" Ethan snapped. He rushed to my side, sweeping me effortlessly into his arms. Even covered in bruises and blood from the struggle, his grip on me was extraordinarily gentle. ""Richard, get your car out of the back alley. The Mercedes has tinted windows and private plates. We take her to St. Jude’s private annex—the one with off-grid intake.""
My father didn't ask questions. He threw open the door to the attached garage, the engine of his sedan roaring to life seconds later.
""Ava, look at me,"" Ethan pleaded as he carried me through the kitchen. His eyes were frantic, pleading, utterly stripped of any deception. ""I need you to breathe. Deep breaths, just like we practiced in class. In for four, out for four.""
""Don't... talk to me about classes,"" I wheezed through clenched teeth, another contraction squeezing my torso like a vice. ""You lied to me... for eight years. You aren't Ethan Miller. I don't even know... who is having this baby with me!""
""I am the man who loves you,"" he said, tears finally welling in his own eyes as he laid me carefully across the back leather seat of my father's car. ""I swear to God, Ava. The name was fake, but the man who fell in love with you is real. I will answer every single question. I will go to prison if I have to. But right now, you and our daughter are the only things on this earth that matter.""
Julianna climbed into the front passenger seat, terrified of being left behind. My father slammed the sedan into reverse, tearing out of the alleyway just as two black SUVs turned onto the far end of our quiet suburban street, their headlights cutting through the gray afternoon rain.
They had missed us by seconds.
As my father sped through the winding back roads of the county to avoid the highway traffic cameras, Julianna turned around in her seat, her face pale as a ghost.
""Ava,"" she said softly over the sound of the rain lashing the roof. ""I'm sorry. You have to understand... they kidnapped my son six months ago. The belly beneath my coat... it isn't real. It’s a prosthetic used to smuggle surveillance gear and buy time. They told me if I didn't stage this scene and force Julian to reveal the drive, they would kill my little boy.""
She unbuttoned her coat and unhooked a thick silicone strap, setting the artificial bump onto the floorboards. Beneath it, she was rail-thin, hollow-cheeked, and completely broken.
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I closed my eyes, struggling through another wave of blinding pain. ""What is on that drive, Julian?"" I demanded, using his real name for the first time. ""What is so valuable that innocent people are being hunted down like animals?""
Julian took my hand between both of his, pressing it against his forehead. ""Proof that the pharmaceutical conglomerate my family worked for deliberately falsified trials on fertility drugs—drugs that caused catastrophic illnesses in thousands of women, all while profiting billions off the treatments. My father died trying to blow the whistle. Julianna and I barely escaped with the encrypted research. If that data goes public, the executives face life sentences. That’s why they will never stop hunting us.""
