Chapter 78 The Safe House
The car was still idling outside when Aiden killed all the lights.
“Back door,” he whispered. “Now.”
Ariella grabbed the diaper bag with shaking hands, Elena strapped to her chest in the carrier. Aiden had his phone, wallet, and the documents Victoria brought, everything else they’d have to leave behind.
They moved through the dark apartment like ghosts. Every creak of the floorboards felt like a gunshot. Elena was miraculously quiet, her warm weight against Ariella’s chest the only thing keeping her from completely losing it.
Aiden opened the back door slowly. The alley behind their building was empty and dark. Too dark.
“Wait,” Ariella breathed. “The streetlight’s out. It wasn’t out earlier.”
They froze.
From the darkness, they heard footsteps. Deliberate and Unhurried.
“Mr. and Mrs. Frost.” A man’s voice, unfamiliar. “We just want to talk.”
Aiden slammed the door and locked it. “Fire escape. Go.”
They ran to the window. Aiden wrenched it open and Ariella climbed through, Elena pressed tight against her. The metal grating was slick with February ice. Her hands were shaking so hard she could barely grip the railing.
Behind them was pounding on the back door, Then the sound of wood splintering.
“Move!” Aiden hissed.
They scrambled down one level, two. Ariella’s foot slipped and she grabbed the railing with both hands, Elena squealing as they lurched sideways.
“I’ve got you,” Aiden caught her waist. “Keep going.”
Third floor. Second. Ground level finally and they dropped into the alley just as their apartment window exploded with flashlight beams.
“There!” Someone shouted from above.
They ran.
Ariella had never run so fast in her life. Elena bouncing against her chest, Aiden’s hand gripping hers, pulling her through alleys and side streets she didn’t recognize. Her lungs burned. Her legs screamed. But terror was a hell of a motivator.
They burst onto the main street with people, lights, and witnesses. Aiden flagged a taxi.
“Brooklyn,” he gasped. “Park Slope. I’ll give you the address.”
The driver looked at them wild-eyed, panting, clutching a baby and hesitated.
Aiden threw two hundred-dollar bills at him. “Now. Please.”
They peeled away from the curb. Ariella looked back through the rear window. Two men in dark clothes emerged from the alley, scanning the street. One of them pulled out a phone.
“They’re calling it in,” she whispered. “Whoever they’re working for knows we ran.”
“Where are we going?” she asked Aiden.
“Somewhere no one knows about. Not Marcus. Not the FBI. No one.”
“You have a secret safe house?”
“My mom did. Before she died. A brownstone in Park Slope under a shell company no one knew about. Not even my father.” His voice was hollow. “She was planning to leave him. Had this whole exit strategy mapped out. Divorce lawyers, a new identity for three of us. Then she died before she could use it.”
“How do you know about it?”
“I found the documents in her things after the funeral. Never told anyone. Kept paying the property taxes out of a separate account Richard didn’t monitor.” He looked at her. “I used to go there sometimes. When everything was too much. It’s empty but it’s safe.”
The taxi driver was watching them in the rearview mirror. Suspicious, Calculating whether to call the police.
“My wife’s sister,” Aiden said, forcing a laugh. “Crazy ex-boyfriend situation. We’re just helping her lay low for a bit. You know how it is.”
The driver grunted and Kept driving.
Forty minutes later they stood in front of a narrow brownstone on a quiet tree-lined street. Aiden paid the driver, added another hundred for his silence, and they watched the taxi disappear.
“This is it,” Aiden said.
Inside was frozen in time, Furniture covered in white sheets. Dust everywhere. But the utilities were on. Aiden had kept them running all these years.
Ariella sank onto a covered couch, Elena finally asleep against her chest. “What now?”
“Now we figure out who’s hunting us.” Aiden pulled out his phone. No messages from Marcus. Nothing from the FBI. But three missed calls from an unknown number.
He put the phone on speaker and called the number back.
It rang once.
“Clever,” the voice from earlier said. “The fire escape. Very action movie. But you’re only delaying the inevitable.”
“Who are you?” Aiden demanded.
“Someone who’s been cleaning up Richard Frost’s messes for twenty years. And you’re the biggest mess yet.”
“We haven’t done anything…”
“You’ve been talking to Victoria Winters. Collecting evidence. Building a case that would destroy very important people. That’s unacceptable.”
“Victoria’s dead,” Ariella said. “You killed her.”
“I neutralized a threat. There’s a difference. Just like I neutralized Catherine Frost when she got too curious. Just like I neutralized that Hayes boy when he witnessed something he shouldn’t have.”
Ariella’s world tilted. “You killed my brother?”
“I followed orders. James Winters paid well. Richard Frost paid better. I’ve worked for them both over the years. They thought they were using me. Really, I was building leverage. Insurance. And now I have enough dirt on both families to bury you all.”
“What do you want?” Aiden’s voice was ice.
“I want you to disappear. Take your little family and vanish. Change your names. Leave the country. I don’t care. Just stop investigating. Stop asking questions. Let me tie up the remaining loose ends and we’ll never speak again.”
“And if we refuse?”
“Then Elena grows up without parents. Maybe she doesn’t grow up at all. Accidents happen. Especially to babies.”
The line went dead.
Ariella was shaking so hard she could barely hold Elena. “He killed Ethan. He admitted it. He…”
“We need proof,” Aiden said. “A recorded confession. Something we can take to the FBI.”
“We can’t go to the FBI! He said everyone’s compromised…”
“Not everyone. There has to be someone we can trust.”
His phone buzzed. Text from Marcus: FBI issuing warrant for your arrest. Victoria’s death was ruled suspicious. Hotel cameras show you entering the building 90 minutes before the estimated time of death. GET OUT NOW.
“That’s impossible,” Ariella breathed. “We were never at her hotel…”
“They faked the footage, Deep fakes or…” Aiden’s face went white. “Or they have someone inside the hotel security who altered the logs. This isn’t just a mole. This is an entire network.”