“Mommy, there’s a boat.”
“I see it.”
“Can we live here?”
I almost laughed.
“Let’s make it through tonight.”
Luca stayed ten minutes.
Before leaving, he placed a card on the kitchen counter.
“Marcus’s number. Mine is already in your phone. Rachel will call when she has Illinois counsel.”
“You really don’t have to keep doing this.”
“I know.”
“That somehow makes it stranger.”
He smiled.
“Get some sleep, Blaire.”
After he left, I sat on the floor beside Fiona’s bed until she fell asleep.
Then I went into the bathroom and cried so hard I had to sit on the edge of the tub.
Not because David had found me.
Not because Luca Sterling had rescued me.
He hadn’t.
I cried because for the first time in days, nobody was demanding anything from me.
There was no locked door.
No declined card.
No voice telling me I was overreacting.
No need to keep my face calm so Fiona would not be scared.
By midnight, I was on a video call with an Illinois family attorney named Miriam Cole.
She was in her fifties, wore reading glasses on a chain, and had the reassuring manner of someone who did not confuse drama with urgency.
“I’ve read his filing,” she said.
My stomach tightened.
“He says I abducted Fiona.”
“He uses that word. His filing also says you disappeared without telling him where your daughter was.”
“I texted him.”
“I have the screenshot you sent.”
“He knew she was safe.”
“That will matter.”
“What is he asking for?”
“Immediate return of the child to Illinois and temporary sole decision-making while the case is pending.”
I stared at her.
“Can he get that?”
“He can ask for anything. What he receives depends on the facts.”
I told her about the locks.
The bank account.
The photographs.
The woman from his office.
Miriam held up one hand.
“The affair may matter emotionally. It may matter financially if marital funds were involved. Right now, I care most about the child, access to the home, financial control, and what happened immediately before you left.”
“I didn’t take Fiona away to punish him.”
“I know. Tomorrow, a judge needs to understand that too.”
The next morning, David called sixteen times.
I did not answer.
Miriam had told me not to engage directly until she understood exactly what was happening.
