Chapter 5 - THE SNOWS OF IOWA AND A QUIET KITCHEN
Two hundred miles west of Chicago, in a small, sleepy farming community nestled in the rolling hills of eastern Iowa, the first major snowstorm of the season was burying the world in a blanket of absolute, pristine white.
Celeste Duca—though she now went by her mother’s maiden name, Celeste Miller—sat at a scarred wooden kitchen table in a modest, cream-colored rental cottage on the edge of town.
The cottage belonged to an elderly widow named Martha, a kind, half-deaf woman who didn't ask awkward questions when a young, quiet pregnant woman arrived on her doorstep with a single leather bag and paid three months' rent strictly in cash.
A wood-burning stove crackled softly in the corner, filling the small kitchen with the comforting, earthy scent of burning oak.
Celeste held a steaming mug of peppermint tea between her palms, staring out the frosted window at the falling snowflakes. Her fingers had lost their city-bred softness; her skin was slightly chapped from the rural cold, and she wore an oversized woolen sweater that swallowed her frame.
Yet, despite the isolation, despite the profound uncertainty of her future, she felt something she hadn't felt in four long years in the Chicago penthouse:
Peace.
Here, there were no crystal chandeliers to cast cold reflections. No armed guards standing silently in the hallways. No suffocating expectation to play the role of the mob boss’s elegant, untouchable trophy wife.
Here, she was just Celeste.
She reached down, resting her hand gently against her stomach. The baby was growing stronger every day, kicking with a persistent, stubborn rhythm that always brought a faint, gentle smile to her lips.
“We’re going to be okay, little one,” she whispered softly to the empty room. “We have a garden to plant in the spring. And a whole world to see.”
She didn't know how long she could hide. She knew Vincenzo’s reach was long; she knew his men were scouring the country looking for any trace of her. But she also knew something Vincenzo was only just beginning to learn:
May you like
A cage is only as strong as the prisoner’s willingness to stay inside it.
And Celeste was never, ever going back.
