Chapter 14
Vivian
Meanwhile, Ryan barely slept.
He kept the lights on at night, checked the locks twice an hour, jumped at every car that slowed on his street.
Lisa noticed, of course. She noticed everything. She started keeping the baby close, never letting him nap alone, always making sure the doors were double bolted.
The strange cars kept coming, sometimes stopping for hours. Once, a man in a ball cap stood at the end of their driveway for a full thirty minutes, just watching the house.
Lisa called the police, but the man was gone by the time they arrived.
“Maybe it’s nothing,” she said, voice brittle. “Maybe it’s just a coincidence.”
But she knew better.
Ryan tried to comfort her, but his hands shook and his eyes darted every time a phone rang.
One day, the baby
By the next morning, my world was surrounded by bodyguards.
Alejandro didn’t hide it. Two men waited outside our door.
Another trailed me everywhere: the grocery store, the gym, even to the mailbox at the end of our driveway.
It was suffocating at first. I snapped at Alejandro—“I’m not glass, you know!
”—but he just held me and promised, “It’s temporary. For the baby. For us.”
It should have made me feel small. Instead, I felt safe.
He told me everything: the rival family, the threats, the plan to use me as leverage. He said it like a confession, like maybe I’d run.
But I didn’t run. I chose him, and I chose this life. We faced it together.
Ryan’s world detonated.
The feds raided his office, took his laptop, his files, even his stupid gold pen. His bank accounts froze overnight. He called me from a borrowed phone, voice trembling.
“Alejandro did this,” he said. “He’s a monster. You have to believe me, Vivian.”
I hung up. Blocked the number.
Later that day, the news hit the front page: Local accountant charged with embezzlement, gambling fraud, and conspiracy.
I laughed. The universe finally took my side.
Lisa called, too.
She was scared. “I think they’re following me,” she whispered. “I saw a car this morning, parked down the street. It didn’t leave for hours.”
“Are you safe?” I asked.
She paused. “I don’t know anymore.”
That night, she showed up at our door.
She looked terrible—sunken cheeks, dark circles, fingers raw from biting.
Alejandro let her in. She didn’t look at him. She only looked at me.
She started crying before she even spoke.
“I’m sorry,” she said, over and over. “I ruined everything. I ruined you.”
She confessed it all: how she’d manipulated me, how she’d kept Ryan on the hook, how she’d convinced herself that having the baby, being a family, would make her happy.
“It didn’t,” she said, voice a shredded whisper. “Nothing made me happy. Not after I lost you.”
I held her, because that’s what you do for sisters, even when you can’t ever trust them again.
When she finally pulled away, I told her, “I forgive you. But I’ll never forget.”
She nodded. “I wouldn’t, either.”
Alejandro promised to get her somewhere safe. He sent two men to escort her home.
He poured me a glass of wine and kissed my forehead. “You did the right thing.”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t know if I believed it.
Lisa never made it home.
The car got halfway across the city before a black van rammed it off the road. Two men in ski masks dragged her out, threw her into the back, and vanished before the security team could respond.
Alejandro got the message an hour later.
He read it, face stone cold, then handed it to me.
If you want your wife back alive, come alone.
I stared at the note.
Then at Alejandro.
He was already making calls, already loading a gun into his jacket.
I grabbed his arm. “I’m coming with you.”
He shook his head. “Not a chance.”
I squeezed his hand, refusing to let go.
“I’m not a victim,” I said. “Not anymore.”
He smiled, just a little.
“Then let’s get her back.”
Holy. Freaking. Heck.
This was war now.