Chapter 3 - Refuge in the Rust BeltTwo thousand miles away from the neon towers of Chicago, the small industrial town of Millfield, Ohio, offered a quiet, unassuming anonymity. Nestled between rolling green hills and rusting steel mills, Millfield was a place where people minded their own business and lived by the sweat of their brows.
Lena Vance—now calling herself Nora Evans—rented a modest, second-floor apartment above a local framing shop on Main Street. The floors creaked, the radiator hissed a frantic rhythm every morning, and the kitchen was barely large enough for a single person to turn around in.
For Lena, it was paradise.
She took a job working part-time at the town’s community library, restoring old, water-damaged books and cataloging historical local records. The work was quiet, repetitive, and deeply therapeutic. Here, no one cared who her husband was. No one whispered about Duca Holdings, mafia syndicates, or midnight security details.
By the end of her fourth month, her belly had begun to round out noticeably beneath her oversized knit sweaters. The twins were active, kicking and tumbling against her ribs with a vibrant energy that reminded her every single day why she had run. She wasn't alone anymore; she had two tiny protectors keeping her company through the long, quiet nights.
Yet, safety in Millfield came with a growing, gnawing anxiety.
Every time a black luxury sedan drifted down Main Street, Lena’s heart would hammer against her ribs. Every unfamiliar ring of her landline phone made her breath catch. She knew Dante. She knew that a man of his wealth and power wouldn't stop searching just because she had changed her name. The longer she hid, the more terrifying the inevitable confrontation became.
One afternoon, as Lena was organizing a stack of 19th-century county ledgers in the back room of the library, the front bell chimed.
She heard the librarian, an elderly woman named Martha, greeting a customer up front. Then came a low, cultured, unmistakably authoritative voice asking a question that sent a freezing jolt straight down Lena’s spine.
"Excuse me, ma'am. I'm looking for a local resident. An artist who moved to the area a few months ago under the name Nora Evans."
Lena froze, a heavy leather-bound ledger slipping from her trembling fingers and crashing loudly onto the wooden floor.
He found me.
The thought echoed in her mind like a death knell. Panic, hot and blinding, surged through her veins. She backed away into the shadows of the archive room, her hand pressing instinctively against her swollen stomach. She looked frantically around the small room—there was no back exit, only a single window overlooking the alleyway two stories down.
"Oh, you must mean sweet Nora!" Martha’s voice drifted back clearly through the open doorway. "She works in the restoration room in the back. Are you a relative, sir?"
Footsteps—slow, measured, and terrifyingly familiar—began to approach the archive room door.
May you like
Lena’s breath came in short, ragged gasps. She couldn't let him take her back. She couldn't let the man who had held another woman in his arms take control of her children.
The door handle clicked down.
