LOGINIris's POV Six months had passed since the day I walked into the mall as Elena Hart and walked out as Iris Hale. The transition hadn't been easy. There were days when I felt like I was living in two worlds at once, one foot in the present and the other stuck in a past I couldn't access. But slowly, piece by piece, I was finding my footing. The women who had once been my closest friends were becoming my closest friends again, even if I didn't remember the history that had made us that way. They told me stories about college and weddings and late nights that I couldn't recall, and I listened and laughed and tried to stitch together a life from the fragments they offered. Maya, in particular, had refused to let me retreat into the safety of my apartment. She showed up at least once a week with coffee and gossip and a determination to make me remember. She told me about our friendship, about the years we had spent growing up together, about the secrets we had shared and the dreams we
Iris's POV The encounter with Victor stayed with me longer than it should have. I couldn't stop thinking about the way he looked at me, the way his hand felt when he shook mine, the strange sense of familiarity that had washed over me when our eyes met. Something about him felt important, like a missing piece of a puzzle I didn't know I was trying to solve. I pushed the thought aside and focused on the weekend ahead. Marcus was picking up the twins on Saturday to introduce them to Rachel, and I needed to prepare them for what that meant. They had been excited when I told them, chattering about what they would wear and what they would say, but I could see the nervousness underneath their excitement. They wanted to make a good impression on the woman who might become part of their lives. Saturday morning passed in a blur of breakfast and baths and last-minute wardrobe changes. Ava had decided that she needed to wear her favorite dress, the one with the tiny flowers that made her
Iris's POVI was reviewing a financial report on my laptop, and watching over the twins occupied with a puzzle at the kitchen table when my phone rang.Marcus's name flashed on my screen, and I answered on the second ring, keeping my voice professional."Marcus. Is everything alright?""Everything's fine." He paused, and I heard him exhale slowly. "I wanted to ask you something about the kids."I closed my laptop and leaned back in my chair. "What about them?""I want them to meet Rachel. My fiancée." Another pause. "But I wanted to ask your permission first. I know this is complicated, and I don't want to overstep."The words landed somewhere in my chest, heavy and uncomfortable. Rachel, the woman I had met briefly, the one who had looked at me with such careful politeness. She was going to be part of my children's lives. She was going to sit at the same table with them and laugh at their jokes and become someone they knew."I appreciate you asking," I said, keeping my voice steady.
Victor's POVThe moment Marcus walked out of the visiting room, I knew I was done pretending.Six years I had spent in this place, medicated and monitored and treated like a man who had lost his mind. And maybe I had lost it. Maybe the obsession had broken something inside me that could never be repaired. But hearing that Iris was alive, that she had been alive this whole time, that she had given birth to my grandchildren and was living just a few hours away, it woke something in me that I had thought was dead.Hope.I stood up from the table and walked back to my room with steady legs and a steady heart. The guard didn't stop me because they never did anymore. I had been compliant for so long that they had stopped paying attention to me. I sat on the edge of my bed and stared at the wall while my mind raced through possibilities I hadn't allowed myself to consider in years.Iris was alive. She didn't remember me or the life we had shared or the love we had made or the child she had b
Marcus's POVRachel's apartment was on the third floor of a quiet building on the east side of the city. I had been there once before, back when we first started dating and she was still living alone. She had made me dinner and we had stayed up talking until three in the morning, and I had driven home with the feeling that something good was happening in my life. Something I didn't deserve.I parked on the street and sat there for a long moment with my hands on the wheel. I had spent the past few hours in a psychiatric hospital listening to my father confess to things I could barely process. The pheremones. The manipulation. The decades of lies. And underneath all of it, the truth about Adrian Cross and the war he had been waging against our family for years.But none of that mattered right now. What mattered was the woman waiting for me upstairs, the woman I had pushed to the edge of her patience with my hesitations and my unresolved feelings. I had let her walk out of my apartment w
Marcus's POVAdrian Cross was planning something, and I was done waiting for him to make his move.The drive to the psychiatric hospital took forty minutes, and I spent every one of them on the phone with Briggs, piecing together the fragments of information we had gathered. Cross had been liquidating assets and consolidating resources for months. He had been sending Iris messages designed to turn her against me. And now he was hinting at secrets about the night of the fire that I had never heard before.If my father knew something, I needed to hear it from him before Adrian used it against us.I also sent a message to Rachel. She hasn't been taking my calls and she was never at her apartment when I checked on her. My only consolation was the blue ticks showing she reads my messages.The hospital was exactly as I remembered it. Low gray buildings behind high walls, the kind of place that swallowed people whole and made them forget there was a world outside. The guard led me to a priva
Iris’s POV His fingers tightened around my throat. “I know.” The words came out low, steady, and far too calm for the way his hands were pressing into my skin. I clawed at his wrists, my nails digging in, my body twisting beneath him as I tried to pull free. “I know what you’ve been doing.” My
Iris's POVIt's finally the dreaded Friday. I was standing in front of my closet, staring at the armor I'd carefully selected: high-necked black blouse, long sleeves, trousers that buttoned at the waist instead of anything that flowed or teased, when my phone buzzed on the dresser.A text from Marc
Iris’s POV The café on Fourth was the kind of place that made you want to be a better person. Exposed brick walls, hanging ferns, mismatched vintage chairs that somehow looked intentional rather than chaotic. The smell of fresh bread and lavender drifted through the air, and every table had a tiny
Iris's POVI wrote.The words came faster than they had in weeks, pouring out of me like water through a broken dam. My fingers flew across the keyboard, barely keeping pace with the scenes unfolding behind my eyes. A new hero emerged from the haze, darker than Daniel, sharper around the edges. He







