Chapter 9

Four months later.....

I stood before the small mirror in our bathroom, my hands resting heavily on the rounded curve of my stomach.

At twenty-four weeks, there was no longer any magical trick of wardrobe that could hide the truth.

The twins were claiming their space, expanding beneath my ribs with a relentless, miraculous determination that terrified me every single morning. My frame had always been slender, which meant the pregnancy looked pronounced, sharp, and impossible to mistake for a few too many diner biscuits.

"Six weeks left at the Spoon," I whispered to the glass. "Just six weeks."

I had managed to clear Katherine’s tuition debt by working myself to the point of numbness, turning over every dollar of tips to St. Jude’s until the ledger read zero. My feet swelled until my sneakers had to be slit down the canvas sides just to accommodate them, and my lower back felt like a hot iron rod was pressed to my spine by the end of every late shift.

Lou knew. He hadn't said a word—not out loud—but he’d started assigning the heavy mop buckets to Bobby, the high-school kid, and he routinely pushed a plate of scrambled eggs across the pass-through counter toward me during the 3:00 AM lull without billing my account.

We had a silent agreement: I worked until my uniform buttons wouldn't close, and then I vanished before the corporate inspectors came through for the summer safety audits.

"Lyra? The iron is hot if you need it," Katherine called out from the kitchen.

I unlocked the door and stepped out. Katherine was standing by the small ironing board, carefully pressing the pleats of her school skirt. Over the last few months, the sharp edges of her resentment had settled into a quiet, watchful maturity that sometimes broke my heart.

She didn't scream anymore. She didn't demand spring formal dresses. Instead, she had started tracking our grocery receipts, making sure the milk didn't sour before we finished it.

Her eyes dropped to my stomach, lingering on the way the fabric of my oversized apron stretched taut across the middle.

"The neighborhood clinic called back," she said quietly, her voice lacking its old teenage bite.

"They cleared the sliding scale approval for the delivery wing at Cook County Hospital. You just need to bring the residency verification by Tuesday."

"Thank you, Kat," I said, moving to the stove to pour a cup of hot herbal tea. "I’ll handle it before the lunch rush."

"We're going to need more than a sliding scale, Lyra," she murmured, her iron hissing against the wool fabric. "The rent on Western is going up again in June. If you stop working at the diner next month, how are we going to cover the deposit on the new place downtown?"

"I have three thousand dollars hidden under the floorboards in my room, Kat," I said, turning around to face her, my hand instinctively supporting my lower back.

"It’s enough for first month and a deposit on a small studio apartment near the North Avenue corridor. Nobody knows us over there. No diner customers, no gossip, no reminders. We go dark, you finish your junior year online, and I find a telephone dispatch job I can do from a desk."

Katherine looked at me, her blue eyes incredibly grave. "And what about him?"

The word hung in the small kitchen, cold and heavy. We never said his name. We didn't need to. Every time the local news mentioned the Kane Empire’s new commercial acquisition, or every time a glossy magazine featured a picture of Chicago's most eligible billionaire bachelor attending a charity gala with some rich heiress, the silence in our apartment became deafening.

"He doesn't exist," I said, my voice completely level, completely frozen. "He bought a night, and he paid his hundred dollars. The transaction is closed."

"They look like him, don't they?" Katherine asked softly, pointing a small finger toward my stomach.

"The ultrasound. The technician said the boy has a prominent jawline. Like... like the photos on the screen."

"They look like me," I countered sharply, my fingers tightening around my tea mug until the porcelain clicked against my ring. "They are Olsons, Katherine. They have our blood, our resilience, and our name. There is no Kane in this house. There never will be."

She didn't push further. She knew the boundary line.

I checked the small plastic clock above the sink. 10:30 PM. Time to put the apron back on. Time to walk into the damp Chicago night and serve coffee.

As I pulled my heavy winter coat around my body, the twins executed a sudden, synchronized roll beneath my ribs.

As I stepped onto the wet sidewalk, I swore to the dark clouds above that I would run long enough to keep them entirely safe from the man who thought we were a mistake.