MasukNANCY'S POVThe next day the nausea was worse than usual.I woke before my alarm with the familiar sour wave already rising in my throat. I barely made it to the bathroom. Afterward I sat on the cold tile floor with my back against the wall and pressed a damp cloth to the back of my neck until the worst of it passed. My stomach felt hollow and tight at the same time. I had managed nothing more than a few dry crackers and a sip of water the evening before. The thought of real food still made me uneasy, but by mid-morning the emptiness had turned into a sharp, demanding hunger that I could no longer ignore.At the office I moved through the usual tasks on autopilot. Answering the phone. Sorting invoices. Making coffee for the two older men who ran the small import company. No one asked why I looked pale or why I disappeared into the restroom twice before noon. The work was deliberately simple, the kind of under-the-radar job that asked almost nothing of me except quiet reliability. That
NANCY'S POVThree weeks had passed since the afternoon I stood in the small white bathroom of my apartment and watched two dark lines appear on the pregnancy test.I still had not told my father.Every time I picked up the phone and stared at his name on the screen, the words stuck hard in my throat. How was I supposed to tell him that the man who had betrayed us both, the man who had almost gotten me killed, had left something of himself growing quietly inside me? My father would be furious. He would be hurt. He would demand answers I did not have and decisions I was not ready to make. So I kept the secret pressed tight against my ribs like something fragile and dangerous, and I carried it alone through the quiet days in France.I had found a job.It was nothing special — an assistant position in a small company that handled import paperwork and office logistics for a handful of local businesses. The building was plain and easy to miss, tucked between a bakery and a dry cleaner on a
ZADE'S POVI stopped on the opposite sidewalk and stared at the doors she had disappeared through. Panic rose fast and sharp, crowding out every other thought. All the worst possibilities arrived at once. Was she sick? Had something from the cellar — an infection, an injury that had never fully healed — finally caught up with her? I wanted to cross the street and go in after her.I wanted to push through the doors and demand answers from the first person in a white coat I saw.I stayed where I was instead. Hands shoved deep in the pockets of the black hoodie. Jaw locked so tight the muscles along it ached. Eyes fixed on the wide glass doors of the hospital without blinking. The fear sat heavy in my chest, right next to the tight pull of the healing bullet wounds. Every minute that passed made the worst possibilities feel more solid. I kept seeing her pale and hurting somewhere inside those bright walls. I kept thinking about how far she was from anyone who knew her real name or wha
ZADE'S POVI stood outside Nancy’s apartment building with my hands deep in the pockets of a black hoodie.The night air in this part of France was cool and carried the smell of rain that had fallen earlier, mixed with bread from a bakery somewhere down the street and the faint exhaust of passing cars. The building was quiet and ordinary — pale stone, rows of windows, a heavy wooden door that stayed locked after dark. Her apartment was on the third floor. I had counted the windows weeks ago until I was sure which one belonged to her.I had been watching over her ever since she came to France.It was the only reason I had forced myself out of that hospital bed before the doctors said I was ready. The wounds in my chest still pulled tight when I moved too fast. Breathing deep still hurt on the left side. But none of that mattered as much as knowing where she was. I needed to be close enough to see that she was safe. Close enough to step in if anything ever came looking for her again.I
NANCY'S POVOne month later.It had been a full month since I started my new life in France.My father had arranged everything the way he always arranged the important things — quietly, completely, and without leaving any loose ends for someone else to find. A new name that felt strange in my mouth the first dozen times I said it. New documents that listed a life I had never lived. A quiet apartment on a quiet street in a quiet part of the city where no one had ever heard the name Nancy Valentino. Money in an account that belonged only to me. A clean, empty life waiting for me to decide what to put inside it.I had even dyed my hair blonde.I stood in the small bathroom of the apartment the day I did it and watched the dark color disappear under the bleach. The chemical smell was sharp and unpleasant. When it was finished, the woman who looked back at me from the mirror was a stranger. Lighter. Softer around the edges. Someone who could walk through a market or sit in a café without a
NANCY'S POVHe did not soften the words or prepare me for them. He just said them.The relief hit me so hard and so fast that my eyes filled with tears before I could stop them. I pressed one hand over my mouth and breathed through the sudden shaking in my chest. He was not going to die. The bullets had not taken him. He was going to live.“Thank you for telling me,” I whispered. My voice came out thin and wet.My father only nodded. He asked if I had eaten. He told me to rest. Then he left me alone with the relief and the quiet tears and the knowledge that the man I loved was still somewhere in the world, breathing.A week passed.My body kept healing. The bruises faded from purple to yellow to almost nothing. I slept longer stretches of the night without waking from dreams of cold stone and rope and the sound of Zade’s voice. I still thought about him every hour, but the sharp panic had softened into something quieter and heavier, like a stone I had learned to carry.That was the da







