Cleo had been driving a taxi for two years. She had met every kind of person you could imagine—drunk party-goers, stressed-out businesspeople, nervous travelers, and tired parents. She’d heard so many stories, wiped away so many tears, and learned to read people even before they spoke.
But that night, as she drove through the thick November fog, her thoughts were far from her passengers. She was eight months pregnant, and her back ached with every turn of the wheel. The baby inside her seemed determined to practice gymnastics against her ribs.
“Just a few more hours, little one,” she whispered, rubbing her swollen belly. “Then we can go home to Chester.”
Chester, her orange tabby cat, would be waiting for her at home, sprawled across her pillow, shedding fur everywhere. He was the only family she had left, ever since Mark, her husband, had left her five months ago.
She remembered that night when everything had fallen apart. She had come home, eager to share the happy news that she was pregnant. She’d planned it all—candle-lit dinner, his favorite lasagna, and a small gift for the baby.
“We’re having a baby, honey!” she had said, sliding the tiny shoes across the table to Mark.
Mark had stared at the shoes in shock, his face draining of color. The silence stretched on until Cleo couldn’t take it anymore.
“Say something,” she had urged.
“I can’t do this, Cleo,” he had said, his voice flat.
“What do you mean, you can’t?” she had asked, her heart sinking.
“Jessica’s pregnant too. With my child. Three months along.”
The candles had burned low as Cleo’s world collapsed. Jessica. His secretary. The woman he had sworn was “just a friend.”
“How long were you cheating on me?” she had asked, barely able to hold it together.
“Does it matter?” he had replied coldly.
Within a week, Mark was gone. Within two weeks, he had emptied their joint account. Cleo was alone, pregnant, and struggling to keep things together. Now, two months later, she was still working double shifts, trying to save as much as she could for when the baby came.
Her mind snapped back to the present as the baby kicked again, reminding her that she wasn’t alone.
But tonight was different. As Cleo drove down a quiet stretch of road, she saw something unusual. A man. He was stumbling along the side of the road, dragging his leg and clutching his arm to his chest. His clothes were torn and dirty, and his face was swollen with bruises. Cleo’s heart tightened. He looked like he was in trouble.
She instinctively placed a hand over her swollen belly, thinking about going home to Chester, but the man’s pain and desperation were impossible to ignore.
Without thinking, she slowed the cab and rolled down her window just enough to speak to him.
“Are you okay?” she called out.
The man jerked his head toward her, his eyes wide with fear. Blood was dripping from a cut on his forehead.
“I just need to get somewhere safe,” he mumbled, his voice shaking.
Suddenly, another car sped down the road, and the man looked like he was about to run. But Cleo couldn’t just drive away.
“Get in!” she called out, unlocking the doors. “I’ll take you to the hospital.”
The man hesitated, then climbed into the back seat. As soon as the door slammed shut, Cleo hit the gas, glancing in the rearview mirror to see the headlights of the car chasing them.
“They’re still coming,” the man panted. “Thank you. Most people wouldn’t stop.”
Cleo’s heart was pounding, but she kept her focus. “Hold on,” she said, swerving onto a side street to lose the car. The stranger gripped the door handle, his knuckles white.
“Who are they?” Cleo asked, trying to keep her voice steady.
“They’ll catch us if we don’t go faster,” he said, looking terrified.
“Trust me?” Cleo asked as she took another sharp turn, nearly scraping the side of her cab on a parked car.
“What?”
She cut through a small parking lot, barely squeezing between two pillars as she lost the cars behind them. It worked. For the first time, Cleo allowed herself to breathe again.
“Two years of dodging drunk passengers who don’t want to pay,” she said with a small smile. “Never thought those skills would come in handy tonight.”
The stranger looked at her, his expression softening. “You’re pregnant. God, I’m sorry. I’ve put you both in danger.”
Cleo glanced at him through the rearview mirror. “Sometimes, the biggest risk is doing nothing.”
After what felt like hours, they finally reached the hospital. The stranger reached out and gently grabbed her arm as she was about to leave.
“Why did you stop?” he asked, his good eye searching her face.
“The world’s not kind to taxi drivers these days, especially not pregnant ones working alone at night,” Cleo replied, thinking back to the time earlier that day when a woman had stepped over a homeless man having a seizure without even noticing.
“I promised myself I wouldn’t become that person… someone so scared of the world that they forget their humanity.”
The stranger’s eyes were soft with gratitude. “You didn’t have to do this. What you did tonight… it’s beyond what most people understand.”
Cleo gave him a small, reassuring smile and walked toward her taxi. As she stepped inside and started the engine, she glanced back at the hospital door, wondering what he meant.
That night, Cleo went home, fed Chester, and tried to push the events from her mind. But the next morning, when the sound of engines rumbled outside her window, her heart skipped a beat. Chester leapt from her pillow, his fur standing on end as if sensing something was wrong.
Cleo rushed to the window. A parade of sleek black SUVs, at least a dozen of them, lined the street. Men in dark suits moved with military precision, setting up a perimeter around her house.
“Who are these men?” Cleo gasped, her mind racing. “Had I helped a criminal last night?”
A loud knock interrupted her thoughts. Peering through the peephole, Cleo froze. Three men stood at her door—one in a sharp suit, another with an earpiece, and the third… the man from the night before. But now, he was dressed in an expensive suit, looking nothing like the man who had climbed into her cab.
The man with the earpiece spoke first. “Ma’am, I’m James, head of security for the Atkinson family. This is Mr. Atkinson and his son, Archie, whom you helped last night.”
Cleo stared at them, still in disbelief. The man she had helped wasn’t just some stranger. He was someone important—someone whose life she had just saved.
Her world tilted on its axis. What had she done? What did this mean for her?
As the man smiled, Cleo’s mind raced. What had she gotten herself into?
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