Se connecterChapter 216Four's POVWriting the memoir was harder than I expected. I thought I had processed everything through therapy and time but putting it into words on a page opened wounds I did not know still existed. My childhood was under my father's fists. Watching my mother waste away. Learning to be cruel because cruelty was currency in that world.I hired a ghostwriter named Sarah Chen, a woman in her fifties who specialised in memoirs about trauma and recovery. She asked questions I did not want to answer. Pushed me to go deeper when I wanted to stay surface level. Made me sit with uncomfortable truths instead of glossing over them."Why did you stay in the organisation as long as you did?" she asked during one of our early sessions."Because I did not know there was another option.""But you did know. You saw how normal people lived. You understood that you
Chapter 215Veronica's POVLife with three children was chaos in the best possible way. Our house was never quiet anymore. Someone was always crying or laughing or asking questions or needing something. The laundry multiplied like some kind of evil magic trick. I found Cheerios in places Cheerios should never be. Sleep became a distant memory again.But it was joyful chaos. The kind I had dreamed about during those dark years with Jason when I thought happiness was something that happened to other people.Monte took his role as big brother seriously. He helped with diaper changes even though he wrinkled his nose at the smell. He sang to Manuel when the baby cried. He read him board books with exaggerated voices that made Sophia giggle. At eight years old, Monte was already more nurturing than most adults I knew.Sophia was intensely curious about everything baby Manuel did. Why d
Four's POVThe blood terrified me more than anything I had faced in my entire life. Veronica stood in our bathroom at five in the morning with blood running down her legs and panic written across her face. I called 911 while helping her sit down on the edge of the tub. Monte and Sophia were still asleep down the hall."It is going to be okay," I said, not believing my own words.The ambulance arrived in eight minutes, which felt like eight hours. Beverly came to stay with the kids. At the hospital, they did an ultrasound that seemed to take forever. The technician's face gave nothing away. Veronica gripped my hand hard enough to leave marks.Finally, the doctor came in with a cautious smile. "The baby is fine. You had what we call a subchorionic hematoma. Basically a pocket of blood between the uterine wall and the placenta. It can cause bleeding but it does not always mea
Veronica's POVSophia's first day of preschool arrived with all the chaos I expected. She refused to wear the outfit I picked, insisting on her sparkly pink dress with purple leggings that absolutely did not match. Four tried reasoning with her. I tried bribing her. She won by sheer force of personality."This is my first day outfit," she announced with the confidence of someone who had never doubted themselves. "I look beautiful."Four caught my eye over her head and smiled. "She does look beautiful."We walked her into the bright classroom with alphabet posters and tiny chairs. Sophia marched right in without looking back, already introducing herself to other kids. No tears. No hesitation. Just pure fearlessness that made my chest tight with pride and terror in equal measure.Monte had been like that too at her age but Sophia had something extra. A b
Four's POVThe video message sat on my phone like a bomb waiting to explode. Claire Reeves. Jason's sister. A person from the nightmare part of Veronica's past reached into our present on the day we renewed our vows. The timing felt deliberate somehow, like the universe reminding us that peace was never permanent.Veronica stood frozen beside me in our backyard. The last guests were leaving. Monte and Sophia were crashed on the couch inside. String lights still glowed overhead. Everything looked perfect and wrong at the same time."Should we watch it?" I asked quietly."I do not know." Her voice shook. "What could she possibly want after all this time?""Only one way to find out."We went inside to my office and closed the door. I pulled up the video on my laptop so we could watch together. Veronica sat so close that our shoulders touched. When
Chapter 211Veronica's POVNormal felt wrong somehow. Like wearing someone else's clothes. I kept catching myself waiting for something bad to happen, but days turned into weeks and the crisis never came. Four left for work in the mornings and came home for dinner. I went to the foundation and actually focused on my job instead of constantly checking my phone for emergencies. Monte brought home spelling tests and soccer permission slips. Sophia learned to count to twenty and announced it to anyone who would listen.We went on a date to an Italian restaurant downtown on a random Tuesday. No bodyguards. No security team is watching the exits. Just us sitting across from each other arguing about whether pineapple belonged on pizza while sharing a bottle of wine. Four reached across the table and took my hand."This is nice," he said."This is weird," I corrected. "I keep expecting s
Jason's POV.The message reached before Doctor Ebene signed the birth record. Male child, delivered safely. Mother stable. Location confirmed.I read the report once m then again, slower. My son is alive. The thought did not arrive as joy. It arrived as certainty. As completion, something long ant
Veronica's POV.The room didn't go quiet after the birth. It should have. Oh my head, I always imagined silence afterwards. Peace and soft light, maybe years and relief and someone whispering congratulations like the world had gentled around me.Instead, the room stayed loud. I heard machines hum,
Veronica’s POV. The pain didn't fade this time. It tightened deeper, sharper, wrapping from my spine around my abdomen like something inside me was twisting hard and deliberate. My breath hitched and I froze on the bed, fingers dragging into the blanket.Gosh! I was in pain. ‘No. No, please no.”
Veronica’s POV. Four looked wrong. It wasn't something I could name immediately, which made it worse but I had seen that expression a lot of times. It was in the way he came through the door, shoulder tight, eyes avoiding mine as the room itself offended him.He looked at me, he didn't smile, he d







