Adrian didnât raise his voice.He didnât slam the door.He didnât shatter a glass or punch a wall.He simply said, âEnough.âAnd walked out of the room like a man going to war.I followed him. Quietly. Slowly. My legs shaky beneath the weight of everything that had come before and everything about to come after.âAdrian?â I asked, my voice barely a whisper.He didnât stop moving. âShe wants a war. Iâll give her one.ââBut the custody hearingâŠâŠââShe wants to weaponize your mind? Pretend youâre unstable?â His jaw clenched. âThen we expose her first.âHe reached for his phone, dialed, and waited.âVanessa. I need everything. The hit-and-run. The suppressed records. Her old school files. Therapy notes if they exist. Family referrals. People she bullied. Threatened. Bribed. I donât care if we need to go back to childhood,if sheâs starting fires, we bring the matches.âHe ended the call and looked at me.âShe thinks youâll break if she makes you look weak.ââAnd maybe I will,â I admitted.
The envelope lay open on the dining table, the sonogram still staring back at us like a threat dressed in grayscale.Same blurry black-and-white grain. Same curved shape. Except it wasnât ours.The name printed on the upper corner didnât match mine.And the date,just four weeks prior.Adrian didnât speak for a long time. He kept staring at the image like he was trying to pull truth from shadows.âSheâs bluffing,â I whispered, though my voice wasnât steady. âShe must be.âAdrian slowly looked up. âUnless sheâs not.âMy heart dropped.âIf sheâs pregnant, that meansâŠââSheâs trying to reset the board,â he muttered. âErase everything sheâs lost and start again. With a child no one can challenge.ââExcept she used this photo to send a message.âHe nodded tightly. âItâs not about the baby. Not really. Itâs about confusion. Doubt. Making us second-guess everything. If sheâs pregnant, it gives her leverage. If sheâs not, sheâs borrowing someoneâs proof.ââAnd what if itâs both?âThe room was
The world didnât stop spinning after Elioraâs broadcast. But it felt like mine did.Two hours after her video went live, our phones wouldnât stop buzzing.Calls from Adrianâs PR team. His father. Vanessa. Legal reps. The hospital board.Everyone wanted answers.Adrian didnât give them any.He paced the length of the study in silence, one hand on his jaw, the other clenched at his side.I sat by the window. Watching the gray sky churn.They said it might rain. But the thunder hadnât cracked yet.Much like everything else,we were still waiting for the storm to break.When Adrian finally stopped pacing, he looked at me with that same unreadable expression Iâd grown used to.Not angry.Not panicked.Just⊠still.âShe timed this,â he said finally. âShe waited until the custody ruling went through. Until my uncle started sniffing around again.ââSheâs claiming youâre not the father,â I whispered. âEven if itâs a lie, people will question it. And the hearingâŠââWill happen in seventy-two hou
The silence in the house was heavier than usual.Adrian had left early for a board meeting, but not before kissing me twice, not before telling me again that we were safe.But I wasnât sure anymore.Not after the message scrawled on the nursery wall two nights ago in red lipstick.Not after the photo of Eliora, smirking just outside the property line, holding a sign that readStill watching.I walked to the kitchen to pour myself some tea.The kettle hadnât even whistled before Vanessaâs name lit up my phone.I answered.She didnât say hello.âShe made contact with someone,â she said, breathless, âand I think you should know whoâI sat down and then she continued.âShe called Granny Elizabethâ.I froze.Not because I didnât expect it but because I had hoped she never would.That door was sealed long ago and for good reason.âShe asked Granny for help,â Vanessa said. âShe begged. Cried. But it didnât workâ.âShe told her?â I asked.Vanessa hesitated.âShe had no choice,â she whispered.
Chapter Seventeen â A Second HeirI stared at the photo again.Not because I believed her,but because I wanted to,because part of me needed it to be fake.Because if it wasnât, everything was about to change.Adrian hadnât moved from the edge of the couch. The pregnancy test in the photo looked real. Too real. The timestamp in the corner read yesterday.She was fast.Too fast.âSheâs lying,â I said, but it sounded weak even to my own ears.Adrian reached for the remote and rewound the nursery camera footage from last night. Nothing unusual. No signs of intrusion.Still, the message had come. The image was clear. Her words deliberate:Youâre not the only one carrying an heir.âWhat if itâs an old test?â I asked, clinging to reason.âWhat if itâs not?â he countered, voice quiet.We both knew what it meant. If she was truly pregnant, and the child was proven to be Adrianâs,this battle was no longer one-sided. It would no longer matter what the world believed about me, or our marriage, or
The sun didnât rise like it used to. Not for me.I stayed curled beside Adrian most mornings, tracing the edge of his heartbeat with my fingers, pretending I couldnât feel the anxiety in his chest. Pretending my sister wasnât haunting the shadows of our home. Pretending her last message wasnât still burned into the corners of my mind.I want him.She didnât mean Adrian.She meant the child inside me.I couldnât sleep. Couldnât dream. I lived between fear and resolve. Every heartbeat, every breath was a silent prayer that she wouldnât find a way in again.The guards changed shifts with sharper focus. Vanessa moved into the guest room downstairs. Adrian never left the house without three men trailing behind him. I started locking the nursery twice before bed, even though no one slept in it yet.And then, just as we started thinking the worst might be over, something new arrived.An envelope.Taped to the balcony door.No guards saw who placed it.No one heard a sound.It was beige and t