MasukI washed my face long enough for the last traces of sleep to disappear and my brain to belong to me again. The cold water helped. Once I'd patted my face dry with a towel, I looked at myself in the mirror.Hair slightly messy.Lipstick half gone.A little pillow crease near my cheek.Sexy.I combed my fingers through my hair and headed back out.I could already hear the kids before I even made it back to the main office.“Daddy, that’s mine.”“You haven’t touched it.”“But I picked it.”“Picking something doesn’t make it yours.”“That literally makes it mine.”“No,” Max said. “If I pick a car on the street, it doesn’t become mine.”Issa clicked her tongue. “Because you’re little.”“What does that have to do with anything?”“If Daddy picks a car, maybe it becomes Daddy’s.”I stopped at the end of the hallway.Silence.“Technically, no,” Zach said, perfectly calm.Bianna immediately burst out laughing.I stepped into the next room.Apparently, the private wing also had a small dining ro
The problem was, every single one of my arguments had to get past one annoying fact first.He’d done it right.Bianna had gone in to pick them up. Not some unfamiliar Marco standing outside their classroom. Zach had used the authorization forms we’d signed. Security was there, but they hadn’t disrupted the kids’ routine.Damn it. I hated character development when it happened to someone I wanted to be mad at.“Fine,” I said at last.Zach’s brow lifted. “Fine?”“Don’t make me repeat it. Nice words are very expensive coming out of my mouth.”“Noted.”From behind the leather chair, Max’s head popped up again. “Daddy.”Zach turned.“I’m hungry.”“You said that seven minutes ago.”“I’m hungrier now.”Issa appeared beside him. “Me too. But I don’t want a sad sandwich.”“You’re not having sandwiches.” Zach glanced at his watch. “Lunch is here.”Both their faces lit up immediately.I rubbed both hands over my face. “What did you order?”“Lunch.”“Thank you, human menu.”“From Vesper.”I lower
I didn’t dream.Or maybe I did, and my brain, finally given the chance to die for a little while after spending the past few weeks working overtime as a disaster command center, decided not to save the footage.All I remember is warmth.The couch beneath me. The blanket pulled up to my waist. The AC that had felt too cold earlier now felt just right. And a few times, somewhere inside the kind of sleep so deep I’d lost all awareness of where my own body was, something moved gently through my hair.One stroke.Then stillness.A few minutes later, maybe a few seconds, maybe an entirely new lifetime, something brushed the hair away from my temple again, so softly that all I did was make a quiet sound and sink deeper into the pillow.Warm.Quiet.Safe.“Mommyyy.”I didn’t move.“Mommy.” Another voice came from the other side.Still nothing.“Mommyyyyy~ wake up, Mommy~ luuunch.” Then two voices whispered together, much closer this time.I frowned and tried to pull the blanket higher.One of
He walked over to his desk, picked up the tablet, then turned the screen toward me. A preschool authorization message was already drafted, with two blank signature fields.My name.His.Not sent.Yet.I looked at it, then at him.“You waited for me to sign it,” I said.“Yes.”“Character development. I’m almost touched.”“Almost?”“Don’t get greedy.”A small smile appeared, then faded before it could fully form. Maybe because of my face. Maybe because he’d finally realized I hadn’t come into his office to fight.At least not at full capacity.I took the tablet and skimmed the wording.Updated pickup authorization. Marco De Luca. Northlake secure transfer. Parent approval: Arabella Gómez, Zachary de Sanctis.Our names side by side.I stared at them a little longer than necessary.Parent approval.I added my digital signature. “Don’t let Max bring Red Rex if Marco stops by Blackpine.”“Marco isn’t stopping by Blackpine.”“Good.”“If Max asks for a car snack?”“Give him one. Otherwise he’
An hour later, Northlake’s twenty-first floor looked like an office again.I made sure of it.The old executive records room had been sealed. The black laptop, the sticky note, the charger, and everything else on that desk were now in evidence handling under Claire’s supervision, Zach’s security team, and a forensic crew whose names I hadn’t even learned before they started putting on gloves and speaking in sentences deliberately designed to be boring.Emily was back at her desk after spending almost twenty minutes crying in the restroom with Marissa.The finance guy in the gray shirt turned out to genuinely just have a habit of staring at elevators when he got nervous.Sad, but not criminal.The elevators were running again under new restrictions. People could move between floors once their badges had been reverified. The executive suite was open. There were still twice as many security people as before, but they’d moved out of the middle of the hallway and gone back to being expensi
I stared at the sticky note, and for one second, everything else in the room disappeared.The laptop. Security. Northlake. Nathan’s token. The gateway. Daniel. The cloned badge.All of it fell away, making room for one name that had been standing in the middle of my life for months now in a pretty dress, a ring on her finger, and an innocence so complete it felt like a knife every time I thought about it.Fiona.Tell Fiona before we do.Something inside me just went very quiet.Zach shifted slightly toward me.Barely noticeable.His body did it before his brain had a chance to give permission, and maybe that was why I didn’t get angry.I turned toward him slowly.His face was blank in a way that was almost terrifying.Just Zach.And for the first time since this morning, he looked like someone who didn’t have a sentence ready.Good.Because neither did I.Tania stepped in behind me, read the note, then stopped so abruptly it felt like the air between us took the hit too.“Oh,” she sai
Five years later.Oregon rain tapped softly against the kitchen’s glass wall. Steady, cold, and mildly annoying.The pan on the stove hissed quietly, the smell of almost-done corn arepas mixing with black coffee and the chorizo I was frying in the skillet next to it. A slow Latin playlist floated f
I sat on a slick wooden bench on a Boston sidewalk, my watch telling me it was well past midnight, and the only things keeping me company were a streetlamp and the constant buzz of phone notifications going off like a curse.My boyfriend was being kissed by an influencer on a five-inch screen.I st
And then... the blue eyes I’d once punched found mine across the crowd.Oh, good.Just fantastic.If the universe had a sense of humor, it was definitely drunk.I didn’t know who moved first. Maybe not him. Maybe not me. Maybe the room just suddenly felt too tight, too bright, too full of people wh
Five days in the Gómez house felt like being tossed into an industrial washing machine: spinning, loud, warm, and there was always someone shoving food at you even after you’d just said you were full.On day one, Mamá had already rearranged my entire schedule like I was back in eleventh grade and n







