Chapter 5 - The Vanishing Act
Before Clara could stand up from the kitchen table, Marcus had stepped behind her chair, pressing a heavy linen napkin laced with a strong chemical sedative over her nose and mouth.
Clara had fought back, knocking her coffee cup off the table, but within seconds, the world had spun out of focus, fading into total blackness.
When she woke up, her wrists were raw, her phone was gone, and she was lying on a thin mattress inside the welded steel cage in the dark basement beneath the garage.
Marcus had stood outside the bars, holding her handbag and her official passport.
"As far as your friends, your family, and the police know, you suffered a severe bout of prenatal depression and took a flight to Europe to clear your head," Marcus had sneered, tossing her passport into a portable incinerator in the corner.
"You can't keep me here!" Clara had cried out, clutching her belly in fear. "The doctors... my dad's lawyers... they'll look for me!"
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"They won't look for someone who leaves behind a signed resignation letter and a string of frantic text messages," Marcus had replied, holding up her primary phone. "I have full control of your digital life now. You stay in this cage until the baby is born, and then you sign the trust over to me—or you don't leave at all."
👉 Where did Clara find the old backup smartphone that saved her life?
