Chapter 3
Rachel
“You’re sure she said it was okay?” I asked for what felt like the fiftieth time.
I couldn’t help it. Even though I was doing everything I could to remain calm, my mind was racing ten to the dozen.
It was all I could do to remember to breathe properly, never mind effectively planning to run for my literal fucking life.
“Yes, Rachel!” Karen practically hissed, rolling her eyes at me as she scooped a sleeping Axel out of his cot.
I exhaled heavily and nodded at her. “Okay. Sorry. Thank you. You keep rousing the little man. I’m going to run downstairs and grab our passports. Have you seen my car keys?”
“Oh, don’t worry about the keys,” she said in a sing-song voice, gently swaying and coaxing my son into waking up.
“I’m hardly going to fucking walk to Hayley’s, now am I?”
“My parents are going to give you a lift,” she said, raising one shoulder in a shrug.
“Your parents…?”
“I rang them. If the things I’ve heard about the Devil’s Disciples are true, then they already know everything there is to know about your life here.
There’s a good chance that they know what car you drive.
There’s also a good chance that car has been marked and tracked.
” She paused for a moment, and I realised she was completely right.
My mind flashed back to the time I had tried escaping to my mother’s house, only to be tracked down hours later.
I had sworn there wasn’t a tracker on the motorbike, but Vienna had winked at me and said, “we’re mechanics.
You could tear that bike apart, and you’d never find it. ”
It wouldn’t take them more than five minutes to put a tracker in my car. I mean, I hadn’t even noticed when Dante put a tracker on my phone, for fuck's sake!
“Are you with me, Rachel?” Karen asked, getting my attention again.
“The last thing you want to do is to lead them straight to your safe zone. I briefly explained to my parents what had happened, and they were more than happy to come and help. They were on their way over here this afternoon for the party, anyway. I’ve emailed my mum the guest list, and she’s in the process of cancelling everything.
You don’t need to worry about a thing. You know they’ve always adored you and Axel. ”
They were coming for the party anyway. Now they’re helping me escape from it.
My shoulders sagged, the tension leaving my body. I sighed a breath of relief and closed my eyes, determined to grab hold of the calmness and force it to stay with me.
Karen’s parents would help. I didn’t have to do this alone.
Ever since I had employed Karen, her parents had been part of the package.
They cooked food and told her to bring it to my house to freeze for a later date.
They helped with Axel. Her mum even took me to get my car fixed when one of the tyres blew.
She then spent the day chauffeuring me around when I had no other means of transportation.
They knew we didn’t have anyone else, so they made sure we were okay and that we never felt alone.
I had once asked her father why, and he said that he had to hope that if ever Karen decided to move away, that someone would be kind enough to take her under their wing and show her some human decency.
He was a good man. I was going to miss him—I was going to miss the whole family, in fact.
It fucking sucked that Dante was taking this away from me.
You took his son away from him
No. No!
I would not do this. Not anymore. I would not lay the blame at my feet and find ways to excuse his behaviour—I had done enough of that when I lived with him. Every single argument, every single doubt, I tried my best to see Dante’s point of view.
I spent months agonising over the way our relationship had ended.
And yes, I can look back now with a clear head and realise I did not handle things the best way I could have.
I was no longer in the thick of it, and having to rely on quick, rash decisions.
I could see things with an element of hindsight and realise my mistakes.
Sometimes I was downright hardheaded and stubborn. But I had still tried to see things from Dante’s point of view. I had still excused enough of his shitty behaviour. Well, not anymore. Not this time.
Had I not tried to tell Dante about the pregnancy? Yes, I had! Could I have tried harder? Sure. I could have grabbed him and screamed it in his face. But what would have been the point? He threw me out. He called quits on our relationship.
I could admit I was feeling vengeful during my pregnancy. There was nothing stopping me from ringing him once I arrived back in the UK. I could have even sent him baby scans. Hell, I didn’t even need to talk to him. I could have sent Vienna all the information needed.
But every time I thought about it, all I could see was Bee’s face when he ripped her from my arms. Her screams still haunted me at night.
I had nightmares about the heartbreaking way she begged and pleaded with me not to leave her.
The way her little body shook in my arms as she sobbed against me, imploring me not to abandon her.
Every fucking night, the same dream.
I would wake up in a cold sweat. Sometimes I wouldn’t remember the dream, but I knew something was wrong. There was a profound sense of loss, and I would panic as I tried to think what was missing. And then the grief would hit me.
Other times I was aware from the second my eyes opened, and I would sob into my pillow, crying myself to sleep, my thoughts of the little girl I had failed so miserably.
It was easier this way. It was easier to just forget that life. All that mattered now were me and Axel.
There was not a chance in hell I would give Dante the opportunity to take Axel the way he had taken Bee.
I could not have loved that little girl any more than if she had been my own flesh and blood.
But Axel was mine. Dante was able to take Bee because I had no legal claim to her.
I was Axel’s mother, and I had the fucking scars and paperwork to prove it!
“Get a move on!” Karen hissed, pulling me out of my thoughts yet again.
She went over to the window and peeped out of the blinds, just as I had done earlier.
“The roads are still clear. My parents should be here within the next fifteen minutes, but they’re going to park down the street, just in case. ”
“Okay,” I breathed, nodding my head as I zipped up the suitcase.
“My dad said maybe it would be best if I took Axel for a walk in his pram and meet you guys at the park? If you go out the back door and climb over the fences—I know it’s not ideal, but the back is much more enclosed than the front, and far more difficult for anyone to be watching.”
“No, I agree,” I said, although I wasn’t looking forward to climbing all those fences.
“They already have a car seat for Axel in the back, so we will head to the area of the park away from the car park, and then you guys can pull up, we’ll get Axel strapped in, and you can make your way to Hayley’s.
My dad is going to give me one of the old dolls from the attic, and I’ll put that in the pram and return to the house to start packing up the rest of your stuff. ”
“You realise what will happen if Dante turns up and sees you with a doll, right?”
She hesitated a moment before answering. I saw her throat bob as she swallowed heavily. “Well… We’ll just pretend that’s not a possibility. And, if he happens to be here, let’s hope he doesn’t decide to ambush the innocent, na?ve babysitter who had no idea her boss was a fugitive.”
I laughed despite the fraught atmosphere. “Karen… I don’t know how to thank you. But don’t return here. It won’t be safe. The second they notice I’m gone—”
“You don’t even know that they know you read the card, Rachel.
If it’s true that they’ve been watching you, then they’ll know you were at work today.
They’ll know you had a party planned. It’s not out of the realm of possibility to think you held off on opening the cards until after the party ended.
Keep calm, stick to the plan, and everything will work out. You’ll see.”
I threw myself forward and wrapped my arms around her, squeezing her tight, careful not to squash Axel between our bodies.
“Go!” she sniffed, blinking back her tears as she pushed me away with her one free arm.
“Say bye-bye to Mama!” she grinned at my son.
“Me and you are going to go for a walk in your pram. Would you like that? Would you like to see the cars? Can you say ‘car’?” she asked, her words trailing off as she went down the stairs to put the first part of our plan in motion.
I took a deep breath, pulling the suitcase off the bed, and looked around at the room I had called my own for the past year.
A lot of tears were shed in this room. It held a lot of unhappy memories.
But it was also the place where my waters had broken.
The place I came home to when Axel was tiny, and we were wrapped up in the long, exhausting newborn bubble.
It was the place where I had stroked his tiny button nose and sang him to sleep.
The place I had cried when breastfeeding became too painful and I finally gave up and went to the bottle—both of us happier, might I add.
It was where Axel had sat up for the first time.
Where he had taken his first, tentative steps a few weeks ago.
This place had been good to us. But it was just a room. Just a house. The memories lived in my mind, and it shouldn’t be so hard to say goodbye to this place.
But it was.
This was the first place that was truly my own.
Except it’s not your own. It never has been. It’s not even in your name. One wrong move, one wrong conversation, and this all could have been ripped away from you in far worse circumstances had the truth been revealed a different way.
That was true. But that was the reality of my life. Nothing would ever truly be my own. I would always have to live under an alias, hiding in plain sight and hoping for the best.
Straightening my back and giving my head a shake, I shook off the past. I had a plan to follow. Today was already history. The future was ahead, and that’s all I allowed myself to focus on.