Chapter 18

ELISHA’S POV

The pain sat in my chest like a stone. Not sharp. Not sudden. Just heavy.

I stood still as the workmen brushed past me, carrying out box after box.

My boxes. My baby’s things. They didn’t know, and they didn’t care. I was just another woman in a big house, watching someone else’s decision unfold in front of her.

“You know,” Natalie said, arms crossed, her voice casual, “if you had any sense, you’d leave already.”

I looked at her. She wore that same expression she always did when she thought she’d won something—smug, a little too relaxed. Like none of this was personal. Like it was all just… logistics.

I didn’t speak right away. I wasn’t sure what part of me she expected to answer—the grieving mother, the discarded wife, the woman whose name was still on the deed but no longer mattered inside her own home.

I stepped forward, slow and steady. I wasn’t angry yet. Not in the screaming way.

“Nat,” I said quietly, “you don’t even know who your baby’s father is.”

The smirk disa