The Escape

Proserpina

When I reached the Safe House, it was already dawn. I was whisked into a driveway, non-descript looking at that, in a street with similar-looking houses. As the car drew up, the door opened. Schwartz was already there, his handsome face looking drawn and anxious. Like me, he had obviously not had a wink of sleep. The dark shadow of his beard heightened the exhaustion on his face.

He was on the phone and gave me a vague nod, indicating with his hand that the men with him should ride ahead. The driver and the escort of my car were swiftly replaced with Schwartz' men.

I had been sitting up, ramrod stiff, trying not to panic. I desperately wanted to see my children, to hold them, to have Lucien's large, warm and solid presence beside me.

But the look on my husband's face as he had left me scared me.

It had been the look of a man who had other things on his mind. Not good things at that.

The violence and savagery of the underworld that he was a part of, was as abhorrent to me a