I watched the palm trees of Beverly Hills give way to gray concrete warehouses and rusted power lines.

My abdomen tightened again, harder this time.

I squeezed my eyes shut and breathed through my nose, trying to control the panic.

“How long have you and Julian been planning this?” I asked, needing to keep her talking.

“Since before you even met him,” Chloe said.

She looked out the window, her jaw tight.

“Julian was supposed to get the Callahan signature power of attorney, transfer the offshore funds, and then we were gone.”

“But he fell in love with the life,” I said.

“He fell in love with the money,” she corrected bitterly.

“And he got soft because of you and that thing inside you.”

She gestured toward my belly with the barrel of the gun.

“He’s not a Callahan,” I said. “And neither are you.”

“We are whatever we need to be to survive,” she said.

The SUV slowed down, turning onto a cracked asphalt road lined with chain-link fences.

A sign hung crookedly from the wire: *Callahan Shipping & Logistics – Dock 14.*