Chapter 5 - The Night Ethan Chose Me
The mansion became a battlefield.
Guards fired through the windows.
Security alarms screamed.
Amelia and I were moved toward the underground corridor while Ethan stayed behind with Brian.
I refused to leave him.
“You need to go,” he ordered.
“No.”
“Jane.”
“I’m tired of everyone deciding where I belong.”
He stared at me.
“You belong somewhere safe.”
“I belong beside my sister.”
He looked at Amelia.
She nodded.
“Let her stay.”
Ethan’s expression tightened.
“Fine.”
We moved together.
Halfway down the corridor, the wall shook from an explosion.
Dust fell from the ceiling.
Someone had breached the east entrance.
Brian’s voice came through the radio.
“They’re inside.”
Ethan turned toward me.
“Keep going.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll hold them.”
“No.”
He grabbed my face.
For the first time, there was no distance between us.
No coldness.
No arrangement.
Only fear.
“Listen to me,” he said. “If I tell you to run, you run.”
“And if I tell you to stay?”
His eyes changed.
“Then I stay.”
I realized something.
He was no longer protecting the marriage.
He was protecting me.
The attack lasted nearly an hour.
Eventually, the gunmen withdrew.
Several guards were wounded.
Three attackers were captured.
One escaped.
Ethan returned covered in blood.
I rushed toward him.
He stopped.
“Don’t.”
“You’re hurt.”
“It isn’t mine.”
“You always say that.”
He smiled faintly.
“Maybe this time it is.”
Then he collapsed.
We took him to the underground medical room.
He had a bullet graze along his side.
While the doctor treated him, I stayed beside the bed.
His eyes opened sometime before dawn.
“You stayed.”
“Yes.”
“You shouldn’t have.”
“I’m beginning to think you don’t understand me at all.”
His mouth lifted slightly.
“That may be true.”
I sat beside him.
“Why did you really agree to marry me?”
He stared at the ceiling.
“When your father first approached me, I said no.”
I frowned.
“You did?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew who you were.”
“I thought you barely knew me.”
“I had known about you for years.”
I turned toward him.
“How?”
“Your mother.”
He told me that after my mother’s death, Ethan had secretly investigated the circumstances.
He found out that her death was not accidental.
He discovered my father had been threatened.
He discovered the trust.
He discovered the Russos.
Then he discovered something worse.
Someone inside the Carter organization was feeding information to the Russos.
Ethan had suspected Derek.
That was why he kept distance from me.
He feared anyone close to him could be used against me.
“So when you said I was only a business deal…”
“I lied.”
My eyes filled with tears.
He looked at me.
“I wanted you before I had the right to.”
I could barely breathe.
“How?”
“I saw you once at a museum.”
I stared.
“You never told me.”
“You were sixteen. I was thirty-one. I knew exactly what would be wrong with me noticing you.”
He shook his head.
“So I stayed away.”
Years later, when my father proposed the marriage, Ethan believed it would allow him to protect me without crossing a line that he had already decided would never be crossed.
But the closer we became, the harder it became to remain indifferent.
“I heard you say you didn’t want me.”
“I said I didn’t want the marriage.”
“That isn’t what it sounded like.”
“I know.”
He reached for my hand.
Then stopped.
“May I?”
I nodded.
His fingers closed around mine.
Warm.
Gentle.
Nothing like the cold touch from our wedding day.
“I never wanted to own you, Jane.”
“Then why did you act like you did?”
“Because I didn’t know how to love someone without trying to keep them alive.”
I laughed through tears.
“That is a terrible way to love.”
“I’m learning.”
Before I could answer, Brian burst into the room.
“We found the safe house.”
Ethan sat up.
“Whose?”
“Derek’s.”
My heart dropped.
They searched the location at sunrise.
Inside, they found evidence.
Photographs.
Documents.
Weapons.
And a recording.
Derek’s voice played through a laptop.
“You said the girl was disposable.”
Another voice answered.
“We need her alive until she opens the trust.”
My blood ran cold.
Ethan stared at the screen.
“That voice.”
“You know him?” I asked.
He nodded.
“My uncle.”
I stared.
Margaret’s brother.
A man named Charles Carter.
One of the most respected men in the family.
He had been helping the Russos.
The betrayal went deeper than we imagined.
Then another recording started.
Charles spoke quietly.
“Once Jane is dead, Amelia inherits nothing. The trust collapses. Ethan takes the blame. The Carter empire becomes mine.”
I looked at Ethan.
“They want you blamed.”
“Yes.”
“And they want me dead.”
“Yes.”
“And Amelia?”
“They’ll eliminate her too.”
We stood there in silence.
Then Ethan made a decision.
“We leave Chicago.”
Brian looked surprised.
“Sir?”
“We disappear.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“Three days.”
“Why?”
“Because we need to force them into making a mistake.”
The plan was dangerous.
We would make it appear that Ethan and I were fleeing together after the attack.
The Russos would believe we were vulnerable.
Charles would believe Ethan had abandoned the empire.
And while they moved, Brian would trace the money.
But there was another problem.
My father.
He had been badly injured and now wanted to confess everything publicly.
He told me the truth about my mother.
He had loved her.
He had been too afraid to protect her.
He had spent twenty-two years regretting it.
“I thought giving you a powerful husband would save you.”
I looked at Ethan.
“Maybe it will.”
My father closed his eyes.
Then he whispered, “Make sure he loves you.”
I looked away.
Because that was the one thing I was no longer sure I could survive.
The next morning, Ethan and I left Chicago in an ordinary black sedan.
No convoy.
No obvious security.
Just two people pretending to run.
As the city disappeared behind us, Ethan looked at me.
“Are you afraid?”
“Yes.”
“So am I.”
I blinked.
“Of the Russos?”
“No.”
He reached over.
“Of losing you.”
May you like
I took his hand.
And for the first time, I held it willingly.
