LOGINOcean & Lola He comes to me first. Before anything else, before dealing with Ethan fully on the floor or checking the rest of the room or saying a word to Daniel standing in the doorway behind him. He crosses straight to the bed and he's there, real and alive, and I don't fully believe it until his hands are on my face. Both hands. Cupping my face the way he always does. His thumbs brushing my cheeks. His eyes moving over me like he needs to check every inch to make sure I'm really okay. "Lola." My name in his mouth. I've been holding myself together since the first shot outside at half past nine. Through the gunfire, Hannah going down, Ethan stepping into the room, the gun in my hand, and everything that came after. I've been holding it together with everything I had because Storm was in my arms and falling apart wasn't an option. Ocean's hands on my face and I stop holding. The tears come without warning. Not the gentle kind, the ones that have been building for four months
Ethan's POV She won't shoot. That's what I know as I move toward her. That's what I know for sure. Four years of marriage and I know Lola better than she knows herself. She will not pull that trigger. She's exhausted, she just gave birth, she's holding a baby, and her hands might look steady right now but they won't stay steady when it actually counts. She's never shot anyone. She's never done anything harder than survive. That's all she's ever been. Small and careful and built for putting up with shit, not for fighting back. She won't shoot. I'm certain of it right up until the second I'm not. The shot doesn't hit me. It goes wide, left, into the wall beside the window. But the sound of it in that small room stops me dead. She fired. Lola actually fired. I look at her. She's still sitting up in the bed, the baby tight against her chest with her left arm. The gun in her right hand, smoke in the air. The smell of it sharp in the room now. Her face. That's what stops me
Lola's POV The first shot wakes me at half past nine. Storm is asleep on my chest. I haven't slept properly since he was born this morning. My body is too wrecked to rest, which feels like its own special kind of cruelty. That level of tired where you're exhausted but your mind won't switch off. I've been lying here in the lamplight, listening to Storm breathe, thinking about Ocean and whether Daniel's message got through and when. The shot sits me straight up in bed. Storm startles and I pull him closer right away. "Shh," I whisper, holding him tight. "Shh. I've got you." Hannah is off her chair and at the door in seconds. She's been sleeping in the corner of my room since Storm arrived this morning. She wouldn't hear of being anywhere else. She cracks the door open and listens. More shots, multiple. Further away but not far enough. She closes the door and turns to me. Her face does that tight, controlled thing she gets when she's scared but has decided scared isn't useful r
Third Person . Michael makes the call at two in the afternoon. He's in a car on the M25, heading toward an exit that leads to a private airfield, which leads to a flight, which leads to a whole new life he's been building quietly for eleven years in a country that doesn't extradite. He has a passport under a different name, money in accounts that can't be touched, and a property outside Lisbon that's been sitting empty and ready for exactly this kind of day. He's been ready for this for a long time. The recording is out, the council is meeting. The walls are closing in the way he always knew they might if something went wrong at the wrong moment and Ocean got out before the six months were up. Something went wrong. Ocean got out. That's the one variable Michael couldn't fully control. He planned for most things, the escape contingency was there. But the recording hitting seven inboxes at the same time, before he even knew Ocean was mobile ... that was precise in a way that su
Lola's POV The pain wakes me up at three in the morning. Not the slow, building kind that gives you time to wake up properly and figure out what’s happening. This one hits hard and fast. A contraction that grabs my lower back and stomach like a vice and yanks me straight out of sleep. I don’t even have time to feel scared before I already am. I lie there for a second, completely still. Breathing through it. It eases after about forty seconds. I stay in the dark of the new safe house bedroom, counting my own heartbeat, telling myself it’s nothing. Just Braxton Hicks, practice contractions. Miriam had mentioned them, it's totally normal, epecially this late. Especially after all the stress and moving from one safe house to another in the middle of the night three days ago. Ezra wouldn’t say exactly why, but his face said enough. It’s nothing. I close my eyes again. The second one hits seven minutes later. By the fourth contraction, I already know what this is. I’ve re
Third Person The recording hits seven inboxes at midnight. By one in the morning, three of them have been opened. By two, the calls start coming in. Not panicked calls, these aren’t men who panic. They’ve been in this world long enough that staying calm under pressure is just how they operate, no matter how bad the shit is. But the calls are urgent, and they keep multiplying. Vincent Romano sits in his study until four in the morning. Sophia finds him there at three. She reads his face the way she’s done for thirty years and sits across from him without being asked. He plays her the recording without saying a word. She listens to all thirty-eight minutes. When it ends, she’s quiet for a moment. “Paolo,” she says. “Yeah.” “Michael Santos had Paolo killed.” Vincent nods. Sophia looks at her hands, then out the window at the dark garden. The same garden where she walked with Lola in the cold and told her the real question wasn’t about forgiveness, but what kin







