Chapter 1: The Price of Survival

For money—enough to keep my mother breathing and the landlord off our backs—I climbed into Derek Callahan’s bed. He was the kind of man who ran Chicago’s world from the shadows.

The first time I did it, the elevator doors opened straight into his living room. My heels sank into a rug that probably cost more than my car. The air in his penthouse was thick with expensive cologne, the city lights flickering beneath us. Derek was the sort of man who could hush a room with a glance, whose name opened doors—or closed them forever. The bed was cold, the sheets crisp, and as I slid between them, I tried to imagine the bills that would cover my mother’s hospital stay, the rent, the endless debts, and not the way Derek’s eyes darkened when he looked at me.

For more than a thousand nights, he found new ways to torment me. Sometimes I wondered if I’d ever feel warm again, or if I’d just become another secret in his city of secrets.

Some nights he barely spoke, his touch all cold command. Other nights, he burned through me like a thunderstorm. The wind off Lake Michigan rattled the windows in winter, and sometimes I’d lie awake after he fell asleep, listening to the city’s sirens wail and the El trains rumble, wishing I could dissolve into the darkness outside.

Later, when the woman he’d always loved—the one he’d cherished since they were young—returned to the States, I slipped away in secret, carrying his child.

I remember the day I left: a gray dawn over the skyline, the El trains screeching somewhere in the distance. I packed in silence while my heart hammered in my chest, praying the floorboards wouldn’t creak and wake the whole house. I took only what I needed: birth certificates, a handful of cash, a single photo of my mother pressed between the pages of a battered novel. I left the keys on the kitchen counter next to a half-eaten box of takeout. I didn’t look back when I closed the door.

I thought we’d never cross paths again.

I moved Annie and me to a city where no one knew us—one of those old suburbs that still put out American flags on Memorial Day and bake casseroles for new neighbors. The air always smelled like cut grass and barbecue smoke on weekends. We built a small, quiet life. For years, his name was a ghost at the back of my mind, haunting only the dark corners of my dreams.

Five years later, my daughter’s kindergarten teacher called: she was missing.

My knees almost buckled. I dropped my phone and had to scoop it up with shaking hands. My heart stopped. For a second, I couldn’t even hear the teacher’s frantic voice over the phone. All I saw was Annie’s messy curls, her missing front tooth, the way she clung to my hand when she was scared. I dropped everything, barely grabbing my coat, and ran. The streets blurred as I searched, every face in the crowd a stranger.

I searched everywhere, until finally, I saw two figures—one tall, one small—standing at my doorstep.

The porch light was on. Annie stood next to a man in a tailored coat, her hand clutched around a red lollipop. He looked out of place on my peeling stoop, as if he’d stepped out of another world entirely. My heart hammered in my chest. I wanted to run to Annie, but my feet wouldn’t move. Every instinct screamed at me to protect her, but I couldn’t even breathe.

My daughter was eating a lollipop, her words muffled: “Mom, this nice man says he’s my dad, but didn’t you say my dad was dead?”

She looked up at me with wide, trusting eyes, waiting for the truth. The man beside her—Derek—studied my face, his gaze as sharp as ever. The world seemed to tilt, and all the words I’d rehearsed vanished in my throat. Somewhere, a dog barked in a neighbor’s yard, and the evening air felt cold and thin.