LOGINNoah’s POVI drove with my father’s blood still on my knuckles.The city moved around the car like it had nothing to do with me. Lights. Traffic. People going home to ordinary nights. My hand throbbed on the wheel. I kept seeing the laptop screen. I kept hearing his voice. I am still going to try again since I failed.I should have gone straight to Julian.I should have called Marcus.I should have taken the files and ended it.I did none of that.I kept driving because the man in that study was not only the man who had tried to kill Katia. He was the man who had packed my school bag. The man who sat through fever nights. The man who signed every form that needed a parent. There had never been a second name on those forms. No mother at recitals. No mother in photographs. No face I could point to and say, that is her. My father had filled the whole space. Father. Mother. Rule. Roof. He had been the only person in my life who never left, and he had used that fact like a chain.That was
Noah’s POVThe house was empty when I got there.Father never left his study unlocked. That was the first rule I learned as a boy. The second was that the room belonged to him the way a weapon belongs to the hand that holds it. You did not enter without being called. You did not touch the desk. You did not ask what lived inside the drawers.I called anyway.No answer.The key was where it had always been, taped to the underside of a drawer in the hall cabinet, the one place a child would look and an adult would never bother to check. I had found it at sixteen and never used it. Tonight I did.The lock turned.The study smelled like whiskey, old paper, and the cold kind of money that never needed to introduce itself. The desk lamp was off. City light cut through the blinds in thin stripes across the carpet. I shut the door behind me and stood there with my pulse in my throat, telling myself I had come for answers and not for the thing I already feared.I started with the drawers.Most
Katia’s POVI woke up stuck to him.Sweat had dried on my skin. His cum was tacky on my inner thigh. My mouth still tasted like him. Julian slept on his back with one arm thrown over his eyes, the sheet shoved down to his hips. Even asleep he looked like a man who had been used hard and wanted more.I watched him breathe.Then I put my hand on his cock.He thickened in my palm before his eyes opened. A low sound left his throat.“Katia.”“You said you’d be right here.” I stroked him slowly, my thumb smearing the wet at the head. “I’m still here too.”He looked at me, then at my stomach, then back at my face."Are you sore?”“Yes. I still want you.” I leaned in and kissed him, morning breath and all. “Shower. Then you can put that cock back where it belongs.”He sat up. I climbed off the bed first and walked to the bathroom without putting anything on. I felt his eyes on my ass the whole way.The water ran hot. Steam filled the glass. I stepped in, and he followed, crowding me under th
Katia’s POVThe house finally went quiet after Aiden fell asleep.Sam had left after dinner. Zane had gone with her. The men outside stayed where they were supposed to stay. Julian came back late, showered, and sat on the edge of the bed like a man who still thought I might break if he breathed too hard.I watched him from the pillows.“You’re looking at me like I’m still in that hospital bed,” I said.“You were in that hospital bed two days ago.”“And now I’m home. In our bed. With a body that still works.”He rubbed a hand over his face.“Katia.”“Don’t start.” I sat up slowly and pulled my nightdress over my head. The air hit my skin. My breasts were heavier than they used to be. The small swell of my stomach showed when I sat like that. I didn’t hide it. “We haven’t fucked since before all of this. I’m done waiting for you to decide I’m allowed to want you.”His eyes dropped to my mouth, then lower.“I don’t want to hurt you.”“Then you don’t get on top.” I swung a leg over his th
Katia’s POVThey discharged me just after nine.Julian signed every paper they put in front of him. Sam had already packed the small bag I hadn’t known she brought. Zane stood near the door like he didn’t trust hospital corridors on principle. Aiden waited in the car with Grandma’s driver, too restless to sit in the room and too scared to say so.“You can still change your mind,” the nurse said, glancing at my chart. “One more night is not a weakness.”“I’ve had enough of this room,” I said.Julian looked at me.“If you feel worse in the car, we turn around.”“I won’t.”Sam slung the bag over her shoulder.“Then let’s go before they find another form for him to sign.”Zane opened the door."The car is ready.”The ride home was quiet at first. The rain had stopped. The streets looked washed and ordinary, which made the whole morning feel like a lie. Aiden kept glancing at me, then at Julian, then back at me.“Does it still hurt?” he asked.“A little.”“The baby?”“The baby is fine.”He
Julian’s POVMarcus didn’t knock like a man bringing good news.He stood in the doorway of Katia’s hospital room with a folder under his arm and rain still on his coat. I knew that look. It was the same one he wore when a problem had stopped being theory and started having a face.Katia was awake. Sitting up. Pale, bruised along one side of her collarbone, but sharp-eyed in the way that meant she had already decided she was done being a patient.“Tell us,” she said before I could.Marcus glanced at me, and I nodded.He closed the door.“Someone was in the garage the night before the crash,” he said. “Not staff. Not a scheduled service. The main camera on the east bay was looped for eleven minutes. The secondary camera still caught a partial. A man in dark work clothes. He knew where the blind spots were. He went straight to your car, Julian. Not hers.”The room went very still.“Name,” I said.Marcus opened the folder and set a printed still on the table beside the bed. Grainy. Side a
~Katia~“Get out!” my mom screamed, her voice tearing through the hallway like a bomb going off in a small room.The sound hit the walls and bounced back so violently, like the house itself was flinching. Even the air felt startled, buzzing with the kind of tension that makes your skin crawl. My he
~Katia~I woke up to the sour taste of bile creeping up my throat, and my legs threw me out of bed before my brain could even catch up. The morning light seared into my eyes like punishment, and I stumbled across the cold floor, my feet slapping against the wood, straight into the bathroom. My knee
~Katia~"Do you know how hard I've been holding myself?" I didn't answer because all I wanted was to get laid. I could still feel the ache between my legs. He carried my bridal style and led me to his hotel room. "Now, I can fuck you however I want because you are now my wife, princess." The room
KatiaI woke up to the sound of people singing badly.“Happy birthday to you...” I blinked hard against the sunlight filtering through the curtains, my brain slow to reboot. The voices were getting louder, and for a second, I thought I was dreaming. A really weird, off-key dream.“Happy birthday, d







