Chapter 1

Ashley POV 

"Just breathe, Ashley. This will only take a few minutes." Dr. Voss snaps on a fresh pair of gloves without looking at me, already reaching for the tray of instruments beside the exam table.

I nod, staring at the fluorescent lights and trying not to think about the three months of overdue rent I could not have covered without this contract. Nia squeezes my hand from her spot beside the table, her nurse's badge catching the light every time she shifts her weight.

"You're doing something incredible," she whispers. "That baby is going to grow up wanted more than almost any child in this city. Some couple out there has been waiting years for this call."

I need to believe her, because in about ninety seconds a stranger's future child is going to be implanted inside me, and there's no version of my life right now where I can afford to feel anything but grateful for the check that comes after. I've read every page of the contract twice. I know the clauses about confidentiality, medical checkups, and the six figures that will be wired into my account in installments as each trimester passes.

I signed it eight weeks ago, back when my mother's hospital bills had eaten through every cent I owned and Route Fertility Clinic was offering more money than I'd make waitressing in a year. Anonymous donor couple. Six figures. No questions asked, as long as I carried the pregnancy to term and handed the baby over healthy. I told myself that was a fair trade. I told myself a lot of things, back when I still believed my life was mine to plan.

"Ready?" Dr. Voss asks, syringe already in hand.

"Ready," I lied.

The procedure itself is nothing, a few uncomfortable minutes and then it's over, and I'm lying there staring at the ceiling while my whole future rearranges itself around a decision I can't take back. Nia walks me to recovery, chattering about nothing to keep my mind off it, telling me about her weekend plans and a new coffee place that opened near the clinic, and I let her voice wash over me until a commotion breaks out somewhere down the hall.

Raised voices. A door slamming. Someone barking orders in a tone that makes the whole floor go quiet, the kind of voice that doesn't need to be loud to be obeyed.

"What is that?" I ask, pushing myself up onto my elbows.

Nia's face has gone pale in a way I've never seen on her. "Stay here," she says, already backing toward the door. "I need to check something."

She's gone almost fifteen minutes. When she comes back her hands are shaking so badly she nearly drops my chart, and she has to set it down on the counter and steady herself before she can even look at me.

"Nia, you're scaring me."

"There was a mix-up in the lab this morning," she says, choosing her words like they might explode. "A storage error. Some of the samples got mislabeled before your procedure went through."

My stomach drops straight through the floor. "What kind of mix-up? Nia, what does that mean?"

"I don't know yet. Voss is trying to trace it now, though she seemed strange about it, almost too calm for someone claiming this was an accident." She grips my shoulders, forcing me to look at her, her eyes red-rimmed like she's been fighting back tears. "It might be nothing. It might just be paperwork that needs correcting."

"Nia, what aren't you telling me?"

She hesitates, glancing toward the hallway before lowering her voice further. "The private vault, where the high-security samples are kept, it was accessed early this morning before anyone else arrived. Whoever did it used a valid staff code, so there's no obvious break-in, nothing for security to flag. But nobody on shift admits to being the one who opened it."

"There's a donor on file here who isn't supposed to be anywhere near the regular program," she says, so quiet I have to lean in to hear it over the sound of my own pulse. "A private client. High profile. The kind of man who doesn't donate to anonymous surrogacy pools, he has his samples stored under armed security in a separate wing entirely."

"So what does that have to do with me? I didn't choose a private donor, I chose the anonymous program, that's what I signed up for."

Nia doesn't answer right away, and that silence tells me everything I need to know before she finally forces the words out.

"His file was open on the counter when yours went through the system this morning. I need you to stay calm, Ashley, but I think there's a chance the embryo they just implanted wasn't the one you agreed to carry."

The room tilts. Somewhere outside, that same commanding voice is still shouting, closer now, close enough that I can hear individual words like security and vault and how, and for the first time I understand why every nurse who passes the door looks like they've seen a ghost.

"Nia. Whose sample was it?"

She swallows hard, glancing at the door like she's afraid someone might be listening.

"Liam Ashworth."

I've heard the name before; everyone in this city has. Head of the Ashworth pack, richest man north of the river, the kind of alpha who has entire streets named after his family and bodyguards who look like they could bench-press a car without breaking a sweat. I've seen his face on billboards downtown, seen him on the news standing behind a podium during pack council votes, always in a suit, always surrounded by people who move out of his way before he even asks them to.

I've never once imagined I'd be carrying his child.

"That's impossible," I whisper. "There has to be some mistake, some way to undo it, there has to be a way to to stop it, reverse it, or do something."

"There isn't," Nia says miserably. "Once it implants, there's nothing anyone can do."

I want to ask a hundred more questions, want to demand answers Nia clearly doesn't have, but there isn't time. Footsteps are coming down the hall now, heavy and fast, and every instinct in my body is screaming at me to run even though there's nowhere to go and nothing to run from yet.

The door bursts open before I can process any of it, and the voice from the hallway is suddenly filling the entire room, deep and furious and close enough that the air itself seems to bend around it.

"Where is she?"