Shhh,Daddy Won’t Know

Chapter 8: Surface of the Deep

​The impact with Blackwood Lake was like hitting a wall of liquid ice. The freezing water punched the air out of Elena’s lungs, and the weight of her sodden silk gown immediately began to drag her down into the prehistoric chill of the depths. Above her, the surface was a chaotic shimmer of red and blue police lights, distorted and beautiful, like a dream she was drowning in.

​She clawed at the water, her movements sluggish and panicked. The darkness was absolute. For a terrifying moment, she felt the current pulling her away, the silence of the deep whispering that it would be so easy to just stop fighting.

​Then, a hand gripped her hair, followed by a strong arm hooking under her chin.

​Lucas kicked upward with powerful, rhythmic strokes. When they broke the surface, Elena gasped, a ragged, choking sound as she gulped in the night air. The cold was a physical pain, a thousand needles tattooing her skin.

​"The boat! Elena, look at the boat!" Lucas shouted over the roar of the wind and the distant sirens.

​Twenty yards away, the motorboat a sleek, blacked-out Chris-Craft shot toward them, its engine a low, muffled thrum. A man stood at the stern, reaching out with a boat hook.

​"Grab it!" Lucas shoved Elena toward the hull.

​Hands hauled her over the gunwale. She collapsed onto the deck, shivering so violently her teeth rattled like dice. Lucas scrambled up behind her, dripping and gasping, his dark hair plastered to his forehead. He didn't look back at the bridge; he looked at Elena.

​"You're hit," he rasped, his eyes fixed on her shoulder.

​Elena looked down. The white silk of her sleeve was shredded, and a line of vivid crimson was blooming through the wet fabric. The graze from the bullet was shallow, but the sight of her own blood mixed with the lake water made the reality of their situation crash down on her. They weren't just running; they were fugitives.

​"Go! Get us out of here!" Lucas yelled to the driver a young man with a terrified expression named Leo.

​The boat surged forward, the bow lifting as they sped away from the bridge and into the vast, dark center of the lake. Behind them, the police lights faded into tiny, harmless sparks.

​"In the cabin," Lucas commanded, lifting Elena to her feet. "There’s dry clothes and a kit."

​The cabin was small, lit only by the dim green glow of the GPS. Lucas didn't wait. He stripped off his soaked shirt and began peeling the wet silk from Elena’s body. His hands were shaking not from the cold, but from the adrenaline. He was efficient, his touch clinical as he cleaned the wound on her arm with antiseptic, though his eyes burned with a dark, protective fury.

​"He tried to kill us," Elena whispered, her voice cracking. "He actually tried to kill us."

​"He missed," Lucas said, his jaw tight. He wrapped a bandage around her arm, his fingers lingering on her skin. "He’s a man who likes to be in control, Elena. When he loses it, he breaks things. But he won't break you. Not anymore."

​He pulled a heavy wool sweater over her head and wrapped her in a thick blanket. The heat of his body as he held her began to thaw the ice in her veins. In the cramped, vibrating space of the cabin, the intimacy was stifling. The smell of the lake, the sharp scent of the antiseptic, and the raw musk of Lucas’s skin created a cocoon that felt safer than the glass house ever had.

​"Where are we going?" she asked.

​"Leo has a place in the city. An old warehouse in the industrial district. Julian's reach is long, but he doesn't know my friends. He doesn't know the world I’ve built away from him."

​He leaned in, his forehead resting against hers. "Are you okay?"

​"No," she admitted, a single tear tracing a path through the dried salt on her cheek. "I’m terrified. I’ve lost everything, Lucas. My home, my reputation, my safety."

​"You haven't lost everything," he murmured. He kissed her then not with the fire of the studio or the desperation of the ledge, but with a slow, solemn promise. He tasted of the lake and salt. "You found yourself. And you found me."

​His hand slid under the blanket, finding the curve of her waist, drawing her flush against his chest. Even in the middle of a literal escape, the attraction between them was a gravitational pull. Elena felt a surge of heat that had nothing to do with the wool sweater. She reached up, her fingers tracing the jagged scar on Lucas’s shoulder a remnant of a childhood Julian had tried to erase.

​"We have to be smart," she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "He’ll use the police. He’ll use the media."

​"Let him. By the time the sun comes up, we’ll be ghosts."

​The boat slowed as they approached a crumbling pier on the outskirts of the city. The industrial skyline loomed over them, a jagged horizon of rust and neon. They disembarked, moving through the shadows of giant shipping containers until they reached a nondescript brick building.

​Inside, the warehouse was a cavernous space filled with half-finished sculptures and stacks of lumber. It was cold and smelled of sawdust, but to Elena, it felt like a cathedral of freedom.

​Leo left them with a bag of supplies and a burner phone. "Be careful, man," he told Lucas. "Your old man is already all over the news. They’re calling it a kidnapping."

​When the door clicked shut, Elena turned to Lucas. "A kidnapping? He’s framing you."

​"Of course he is," Lucas said, a bitter laugh escaping him. "It’s the perfect narrative. The troubled son takes the innocent stepmother hostage. It keeps his 'perfect wife' image intact while making me the villain."

​He walked toward her, his eyes dark. "Is that what you are, Elena? A hostage?"

​"You know I'm not."

​"Then show me."

​He backed her against a stack of crates, his hands finding the hem of the wool sweater. The air in the warehouse was freezing, but where their bodies touched, it was a furnace. The risk, the blood, and the flight had stripped away the last of Elena’s inhibitions. She didn't want the silk sheets or the glass walls; she wanted the raw, unapologetic reality of the man in front of her.

​The romance that followed was explosive, a frantic release of the terror they had just survived. On the hard, dusty floor of the warehouse, surrounded by the ghosts of Lucas’s art, they claimed each other with a ferocity that felt like a middle finger to Julian Vance. Every touch was an act of war, every gasp a declaration of independence.

​But as the first grey light of dawn began to filtered through the high, grimy windows, the reality of their situation settled back in.

​Lucas’s burner phone buzzed on the floor.

​He picked it up, his face hardening as he read the message. He turned the screen toward Elena. It was a photo a live feed of a woman being led into a police station in handcuffs.

​It was Mrs. Gable.

​The text underneath read: The help is talking, Lucas. She says you forced Elena into the water. Come home and I might let her live. Otherwise, the 'kidnapping' becomes a murder-suicide.