Chapter 2 - The Stolen Date
The cinematic realism of the heavy, suffocating tension completely electrified the cozy restaurant.
Vincent didn't call for a waitress or a security guard. He immediately recognized the sheer, absolute terror in the six-year-old's eyes. He grabbed his coat, gently took the little girl's free hand, and walked directly out of the warm restaurant into the freezing, violent rainstorm.
"Where is she, sweetheart?" Vincent yelled over the sound of the pounding rain.
The little girl pointed her stuffed rabbit toward a dark, narrow alleyway right next to the restaurant.
Vincent rushed into the shadows, pulling his cell phone from his pocket to use the flashlight. The bright beam cut through the dark, illuminating a horrifying scene. Sitting on the wet, filthy concrete was Clare. She was a beautiful thirty-something woman wearing an elegant, expensive black evening dress that was now completely ruined and soaked in mud.
She was bleeding heavily from a deep gash on her forehead, shivering violently in the freezing rain.
"Clare!" Vincent gasped, dropping to his knees on the wet pavement.
He didn't know her well. They had only spoken on the phone for the last month after being set up by a mutual corporate friend. Tonight was supposed to be their very first face-to-face meeting.
"Vincent," Clare choked out, her teeth chattering as she desperately tried to cover her daughter with her own arms. "You have to leave. They're going to come back."
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"Who is going to come back?" Vincent demanded smoothly, completely dropping his sophisticated billionaire persona and immediately shifting into a highly protective, terrifyingly commanding force.
👉 Clare looked up at him, her eyes wide with unadulterated panic as she revealed the architect of her destruction.
