LOGINLena's POVWaking felt wrong not painful exactly but heavy as though my body knew something my mind had not caught up to yet and decided staying asleep would be safer. My cheeks felt damp and for several seconds I lay still trying to understand why. Pregnancy made sleep strange lately. Some mornings I woke convinced I heard Ethan moving around downstairs or opening the wardrobe beside our bed and grief had become cruel enough over the months that I stopped trusting the first few moments after opening my eyes.Then I heard Eli with soft uneven sound he made while sleeping against someone and my eyes opened immediately the room stayed dim despite daylight. Curtains mostly closed and my first instinct was panic because Eli rarely slept away from me unless exhausted.I turned my head.Daniel sat near the bedroom window with Eli curled against his chest. My son looked impossibly small from here one fist still wrapped stubbornly around Daniel’s shirt while his curls fell over his forehead.
Lena's PovPregnancy made evenings feel longer.By the time the sun disappeared I usually reached a point where my back ached, my ankles felt swollen and the baby seemed determined to remind me every hour that she existed. I had stopped fighting the exhaustion weeks ago. Some nights I worked late in Ethan’s office after putting Eli to sleep because the quiet helped and other nights I stayed close to the nursery folding tiny clothes that did not need folding simply because keeping my hands busy was easier than thinking.That evening sat somewhere between ordinary and heavy.Eli had refused his afternoon nap and became clingy afterward and following me from room to room with sleepy eyes while carrying one of Ethan’s old photographs in a plastic frame my father replaced twice already because Eli kept dropping it.I found him near the living room rug talking softly to the picture not real words but baby sounds. His small finger tapped Ethan’s face. “Da.”The sound stopped me halfway towa
Ethan's POVDaniel had taken me to a safe house nearly an hour outside Lake Como while we waited for the private jet to arrive. I still did not remember much and the missing pieces frustrated me more now because every answer created ten new questions but I remembered enough to know Lena was my wife and enough to know we had a son named Eli and another baby on the way. My daughter or at least I thought it was one daughter.The articles only said pregnancy everything else I learned through photographs and strangers and the realization still sat badly inside me because fathers are supposed to know these things.I stood near the window of the small house Daniel rented under a fake name while rain moved steadily over the trees outside. The place looked temporary it has bare furniture and one suitcase near the door and bottle of whiskey untouched on the counter.Daniel sat at the kitchen table with two phones and a laptop open in front of him while speaking quietly to somebody. "No, do not
Maya's POVPeople always assume obsession begins loudly they imagine madness appearing overnight and turning ordinary people cruel in a single moment but the truth is uglier because obsession grows quietly.It starts with wanting to be chosen then wanting to matter and then wanting somebody to look at you the way they look at someone else and eventually wanting turns into needing and somewhere between need and desperation you stop recognizing yourself.I used to think Ethan would love me when we were younger and Lena followed him everywhere after his parents took her in but later I thought if I stayed close enough and patient enough he would eventually see me then years passed and he never did because Ethan Carter loved one woman with a loyalty rare enough to make other people jealous.Lena it was always Lena even after arguments even after divorce and even after grief and the problem with women like Lena is they do not realize what it feels like standing beside them your entire life
Daniel's PovPeople think loyalty ends when somebody dies but I learned seven months ago that it does not. Loyalty becomes something heavier after death because suddenly you carry pieces of a person they left behind. Their family their secrets their unfinished work their wife and their children.I stopped sleeping properly the day we buried Ethan. No not buried because we buried an empty damn casket because nobody found enough of him to prove anything.I still remembered standing beside Victor while rain soaked through my suit and Lena stared ahead holding Eli in her arms. She looked pale that day everybody cried. Caroline nearly broke, John looked ten years older, Keenan drank himself sick afterward and Victor stayed quiet.Lena thanked people for flowers and I hated that most because women should not thank people at their husband's funeral while carrying a baby afterward she sat beside the casket long after everyone left. I remember because I stayed back she looked at the wood and w
Lena's POVPregnancy made nights harder lately because exhaustion settled into my body differently this time and no amount of sleep seemed enough. By afternoon I already felt drained and the baby had been moving almost constantly which usually meant my back hurt by evening.I sat in Ethan's office going through contracts while Eli slept on the sofa beneath a blanket. One of his tiny socks had somehow disappeared again and I already knew I would spend twenty minutes looking for it later only to find it inside one of Ethan's old shoes or hidden under a cushion.Children made strange decisions.The office looked less intimidating these days not because it changed because I had.Months ago walking in here felt wrong like I was touching pieces of Ethan that still belonged to him, but somewhere between grief and responsibility his desk became where I worked and his company slowly became something I stopped fearing.I hated admitting that sometimes because surviving without him still felt li
Ethan’s POVI din’t sleep. I sit in one of those hard hospital chairs with my jacket still on, staring at the floor, at my phone, at the doors that keep opening and closing like maybe one of them will finally bring Lena back if I look hard enough.Keenan is back in surgery something went wrong and
Lena’s POVMaya doesn’t rush she stands there in front of me las if she has all the time in the world like nothing outside these broken walls matters and like no one is coming. The two men stands a few steps back watching her more than they watch me waiting for her to decide how this ends.My wrist
Lena’s POVI don’t know how long I have been out but when I come back to myself, it’s slow, like my body is swimming up from deep under water and every part of me feels heavy. My head hurts, mymouth is dry, my arms feel stiff and sore and when I try to move them pain shoots up my shoulders and make
Ethan’s POVThe hospital smells like antiseptic and fear and I never noticed how a place that’s supposed to save people can feel so cold. The lights are too bright, the floors are too clean and very footstep, voice and beep from somewhere down the hall sounds louder than it should.They rush Lena p







