Chapter 2
Evelyn didn’t hesitate.
She lifted me into her arms like I weighed nothing.
“Call the police,” she shouted over her shoulder. “Now!”
Her heels clicked against the marble as she ran toward the exit.
My wet coat dripped onto her silk gown, but she didn’t care.
The gala guests parted like the Red Sea.
No one whispered anymore.
No one stared with judgment.
They stared with shock.
With envy.
With something else I didn’t understand yet—fear.
We burst through the double doors into the cold November night.
Rain was falling harder now.
The sidewalk was empty except for a black sedan idling at the curb.
Two men in dark coats stood by the passenger door.
They were looking inside.
My blood turned to ice.
“Mom,” I whimpered.
Evelyn followed my gaze.
The men turned.
One of them reached inside his coat.
“Get down,” Evelyn hissed.
She spun around and threw herself back through the doors just as something shattered against the doorframe.
The security guards shouted.
The room erupted in chaos.
Evelyn ran for the kitchen.
Her bodyguards finally caught up—three huge men in tailored suits who moved like they knew exactly what to do.
“Take the service exit,” one said. “We have three cars waiting.”
I buried my face in Evelyn’s neck.
She was shaking.
Not from cold.
From rage.
“Who are they?” she whispered against my hair. “What do they want with you?”
“With Mom,” I corrected. “They’ve been following us for weeks.”
We ran through stainless steel kitchens where chefs froze with knives in their hands.
Out the back door into an alley.
Into a waiting SUV.
The doors slammed shut.
Tires screamed.
“Where to, Mrs. Whitmore?” the driver asked.
“Mount Sinai,” she said. “Emergency room. And call my head of security. Tell him to meet us there with everything he has.”
She pulled out her phone.
Her hands were still trembling.
I watched her dial a number.
“Robert? It’s Evelyn. I found her. I found Sarah’s daughter. But Sarah is in trouble. Two men just tried to… they were at the Waldorf. Get to Mount Sinai now. Bring the best doctors. And Robert? Call the commissioner personally. Tell him someone just shot at the Whitmore family in midtown Manhattan.”
She hung up.
Then she turned to me.
Her eyes were red.
Her makeup was ruined.
But she looked at me like I was the only thing that mattered in the whole world.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?”
“Luna,” I said. “Mom named me Luna because I was born under a full moon.”
“Luna,” she repeated, like she was tasting something precious. “My beautiful Luna.”
She pulled a cashmere blanket from somewhere and wrapped it around me.
“Tell me everything,” she said. “Everything that happened. From the beginning.”
So I told her.
I told her about the small apartment in Brooklyn where we used to live.
About the night three men kicked down the door when I was seven.
About how Mom grabbed me and the necklace and ran out the fire escape with nothing but the clothes on our backs.
About the shelters.
The bus stations.
The nights we slept in alleys because we were too scared to stay in one place too long.
About how Mom worked three jobs but never kept any of them for more than a month because the men always found us.
About the hunger.
The constant, gnawing hunger that lived in my stomach like a second heart.
About how Mom had finally decided it was time.
Time to stop running.
Time to find the woman she had left twenty years ago.
Time to ask for help.
Evelyn cried while I talked.
She didn’t wipe her tears.
She just held me tighter.
“I should have found you sooner,” she kept saying. “I never should have let her leave. I should have fought harder.”
We pulled up to the hospital.
It was a private entrance.
Doctors and nurses were already waiting.
Robert was there too—tall, silver-haired, wearing a suit that cost more than I had ever owned in my life.
“Mrs. Whitmore,” he said. “The police are securing the Waldorf. They’re pulling security footage. And I have men sweeping every hospital in the city for Sarah.”
“Find her,” Evelyn said. Her voice was ice. “Before they do.”
They took me to a private room on the top floor.
A nurse tried to give me a gown, but I wouldn’t let go of Evelyn’s hand.
“Stay with me,” I begged.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she promised.
She sat on the bed while they checked me over.
Broken ribs from a beating two months ago.
Scars on my arms from broken glass.
Anemia so bad the doctor’s eyes widened.
Infections in my feet from walking in wet shoes.
Evelyn didn’t flinch.
She didn’t look away.
She held my hand through every poke and prod.
Then Robert walked in.
His face was white.
“We found her,” he said.
Evelyn stood so fast the chair scraped the floor.
“Where?”
“Bellevue. John Doe. Brought in by ambulance two hours ago. Beaten. Unconscious. They were just about to move her to the OR when we matched her description.”
“Take me there,” Evelyn said.
She turned to me.
“Luna, I have to go. But I’m leaving two of my best men right outside this door. No one gets in. No one. I’ll be back as soon as I can. I promise.”
I nodded.
But my heart was hammering.
May you like
Because Robert hadn’t said one thing.
He hadn’t said if she was alive.
