Chapter 4 - Mud and Moonlight
The impact with the wet mulch and thorny rosebushes knocked the breath from Elena's lungs, but she didn't hesitate. She scrambled to her feet, her expensive white dress instantly caked in black topsoil and damp leaves. The delicate lace tore with a sharp ripping sound as she fought her way through the overgrown shrubs toward the low stone perimeter wall that separated the Sterling estate from the public road.
"Get her! Don't let her reach the fence!" Julian shouted, abandoning his aristocratic composure entirely as he leaped off the porch, slipping immediately on the wet stone and landing hard on his knees in the mud.
Shouts echoed from the back of the manor as security guards scrambled to respond to the commotion. Flashlights cut through the misty darkness, their bright white beams sweeping wildly across the lawn like hunting searchlights.
Elena reached the stone wall, her fingers scrabbling frantically against the cold, damp rock. Her wedding shoes—designer satin heels covered in tiny crystals—offered zero traction in the mud, causing her to slip twice before she managed to hook her knee over the top ledge.
A heavy hand clamped down around her ankle, sending a jolt of pure terror through her spine.
"Where do you think you're going, little bird?" Marcus’s voice rasped directly behind her ear. He had moved with astonishing speed for a man of his age, catching up to her just as she prepared to haul herself over the barrier.
Elena didn't hesitate. With a sharp cry of exertion, she kicked backward with her free foot, catching Marcus squarely in the chest. The older man grunted in surprise, his grip slipping from her soaked ankle.
With a final desperate heave, Elena threw her torso over the top of the wall and tumbled headfirst into the roadside ditch on the other side, landing hard among the dry reeds and discarded plastic bottles.
She lay there for a long moment in the pitch darkness, listening to her own ragged breathing and the muffled shouts of the security guards on the other side of the wall.
"She's over the fence! Check the north road!" someone yelled.
Elena pushed herself up, ignoring the sharp scrape of thorns against her arms and the heavy, mud-soaked weight of her ruined wedding dress. She grabbed her suitcase—which she had somehow managed to drag over the wall with her—and began running down the unpaved shoulder of the country road toward the distant glow of the highway gas station two miles away.
Her lungs burned with every breath of freezing air, and her feet ached inside the ruined shoes, but she refused to stop. She had escaped the mansion, but she knew this was only the opening skirmish. The Sterlings did not lose control of their investments easily.
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As she rounded a sharp bend in the road, the headlights of a black sedan swept out from a hidden side lane, cutting off her path and stopping dead across the asphalt with a screech of tires.
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