Chapter 5 - Barefoot Through the Hotel
Madison tore through the service corridor with half her dress dragging behind her.
One heel broke on the first staircase.
She kicked both shoes off and kept running barefoot.
Behind her, Ryan shouted her name.
Not with concern.
With fury.
“Stop her!”
A banquet server stepped into the hallway, saw the blood on Madison’s face, and moved aside in shock.
Madison reached an elevator and hammered the button.
The numbers moved too slowly.
Footsteps approached.
She abandoned the elevator and pushed through a fire door.
The alarm began screaming.
She descended six flights of concrete stairs, gripping the railing as the dress tangled around her legs.
Her shoulder burned.
Her lip throbbed.
The city lights blurred through tears she refused to release.
On the ground level, she escaped through a loading dock.
A rideshare driver saw her stumbling across the pavement.
He immediately unlocked the door.
“Ma’am, are you okay?”
“Drive.”
“Where?”
Madison gave him Nora’s address.
As the car pulled away, Ryan appeared at the loading entrance.
He saw her.
Their eyes met through the rear window.
He raised his phone.
Madison knew he was not calling the police.
He was calling Gloria.
Forty minutes later, Nora opened her apartment door and found her daughter standing in the hallway in a torn wedding dress.
For one second, Nora could not move.
Then Madison collapsed into her arms.
Nora locked the door and called Daniel.
She did not call Ryan.
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She did not call Gloria.
She called the one person Ryan had spent two years carefully convincing Madison she did not need.
