Chapter 2 - The Chase Through Grant Park
The diamond ring on Camille’s finger flashed a bright, blinding white as she gestured toward the skyline. But I didn't see the sparkle. All I saw was the violent lurch of the stroller's wheels as Maya turned it abruptly toward the north exit of Grant Park, plunging headfirst into a thick sea of Saturday afternoon tourists.
"Adrian? Are you even listening to me?" Camille’s voice cut through the fog in my brain, sharper this time. "My mother has been on the phone with the florist three times today, and—"
"Stop talking," I said.
The words weren't loud. They didn't need to be. They carried the heavy, frozen weight of the Vale family code—the tone my grandfather used right before a room went silent.
Camille blinked, her hand dropping mid-gesture. "Excuse me?"
I didn't answer her. My eyes were locked on a flash of faded blue denim and a messy dark bun darting around a cluster of vendors near the Buckingham Fountain. Three children. Gray-green eyes, sharp and clear even from fifty yards away. They were mine. The math hit me with the kinetic force of a freight train: four years since I forced her out of my brownstone; toddlers who looked to be around three years old.
She hid them.
For four years, while I tore Chicago apart trying to purge my life of enemies and build a legitimate shipping front to escape my grandfather’s shadow, Maya had been living right here under my nose. Raising my children. Alone.
"Adrian, what is wrong with you?" Camille demanded, her voice rising as she stepped into my line of sight, blocking my view of the fleeing figure. "If this is about your cousin Leo making a scene at the rehearsal dinner last night, you need to tell your family right now that—"
"Camille. It's over."
The silence that fell between us was heavier than the humid Chicago air. People walked past us, laughing, eating pretzels, completely unaware that a world had just ended.
Camille’s expression shifted from irritation to total, icy confusion. Her lower lip trembled just a fraction—not from grief, but from pure, unadulterated shock. "What did you just say?"
"I said it's over," I repeated, my eyes darting past her shoulder, tracking Maya as she shoved the heavy stroller up the concrete ramp toward Michigan Avenue. "The wedding. The venue. The flowers. It's all canceled."
"Canceled?" Camille’s voice shrilled, turning heads from a nearby bench. "You are standing in the middle of Grant Park telling me our wedding is canceled because you're staring at... at what? Some woman with a stroller?!"
"She's not just some woman," I muttered, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
I didn't wait for Camille to process the sentence. I didn't care about the scandal, the social fallout, or what her high-society father—a federal judge who had spent twenty years trying to indict my family—would do to my shipping licenses.
I turned on my heel and broke into a sprint.
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"Adrian! Adrian Vale, you come back here right now!" Camille’s voice faded behind me as I surged past a street musician, dodging around families and bicycle couriers, keeping my eyes fixed on the bright blue denim jacket disappearing into the crowd near Michigan Avenue.
The chase was on. And this time, I wasn't letting her go.
