I walked into my boyfriend’s family barbecue twenty-seven weeks pregnant / Chapter 59 / 63

Chapter 59 - The Marble Halls of Bern

The Geneva morning was wrapped in a thick, slate-grey fog rising from the cold waters of Lac Léman. The wheels of the transport touched the tarmac with a sharp screech, and within sixty seconds, we were packed into a convoy of two Swiss federal police vehicles, their blue strobes slicing through the European dawn without sirens.

Tyler held Maeve securely in an improvised travel seat between us. Maeve had woken up bewildered, staring at the old stone bridges, the foreign street signs, and the grand limestone facades flying red flags with white crosses.

"Are we visiting the mountains where the snow lives, Mommy?" she asked innocently, clutching a small wooden rabbit Tyler had carved for her weeks ago.

"We're going to put a very old shadow to sleep, baby," I replied gently, smoothing her tangled curls. "And then we're going home. For good."

The convoy screeched to a halt in front of the Palais de Justice, a monumental neo-classical fortress of grey stone commanding the old town square. Vance stepped out first, flashing his diplomatic clearance to the armed cantonal officers guarding the massive bronze doors.

"They're on the third floor," Vance shouted over the roar of passing traffic. "Room 312. Thomas arrived ten minutes ago. The notary has already administered the oath."

Tyler took Maeve’s hand, his other arm wrapping tightly around my waist as we sprinted up the sweeping exterior stairs. Every stone step felt like an eternity. Three years of terror, three years of hiding behind security systems and court injunctions, were narrowing down to a handful of seconds behind a set of double mahogany doors.

We burst through the security checkpoint, the Swiss guards stepping aside upon recognizing Vance’s federal liaison escort. The sound of our footsteps echoed like thunder down the vaulted marble hallway.

At the far end of the corridor, outside Room 312, two men in tailored charcoal suits turned sharply at our approach. One was a Swiss barrister clutching a thick leather dossier.

The other was Thomas Montgomery.

He was older, leaner, his hair streaked with silver and his skin weathered by the sea winds he had supposedly drowned in. But the cold, arrogant sneer upon his thin lips was identical to the one he had worn when he told me I was nothing more than an inconvenient footnote in his family's grand lineage.

When his eyes landed on Tyler, the sneer faltered. When they dropped to Maeve, standing tall beside me in her little yellow jacket, his face drained of every ounce of color.