CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 4
I held up my phone.
Ethan saw the recording screen.
His face drained of color.
“Emily,” he said carefully. “Give me the phone.”
“No.”
“You don’t understand what you just heard.”
“I understand exactly what I heard.”
He took one step toward me.
I raised my glove slightly, not as a threat, but as a reminder.
He stopped.
Margaret’s voice crackled through the speaker again. “Ethan? What’s happening?”
I looked at the phone in his hand and spoke clearly.
“Margaret, you are being recorded.”
Silence.
Then she hung up.
Ethan looked like he wanted to throw the phone through the window.
“You ruined everything,” he whispered.
“No,” I said. “You finally said it out loud.”
I backed toward the door, keeping my eyes on him, and pressed the emergency alert button on my phone. It sent my location and a silent request for help to my attorney, my gym manager, and the private security company tied to the house.
My father had taught me many things before he died.
How to throw a punch.
How to read a contract.
How to never let a desperate person rush you into signing anything.
That last lesson suddenly mattered most.
Ethan’s voice softened.
“Baby, listen to me. We got carried away.”
I almost laughed.
Only men like Ethan thought terror could be renamed as passion once they were caught.
“You pulled a belt on me,” I said.
“I was trying to scare you.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
He swallowed.
“Emily, if this gets out, my career is over.”
I looked at the messy honeymoon suitcase between us.
“My marriage ended before your career did.”
A sharp knock hit the front door downstairs.
Then another.
Ethan’s eyes widened.
May you like
I walked backward into the hallway and called out, loud enough for the whole house to hear.
“I’m upstairs. He’s armed with a belt, and I have everything recorded.”
