FAZER LOGINRoza POVThe clinic lights felt too bright, too white, the same room we had sat in weeks earlier now holding a different kind of fear entirely. Soren gripped my hand while a nurse fastened the monitor belt around my stomach, her movements quick and practiced, and I stared at the ceiling and tried to remember how to breathe properly.“Contractions every few minutes,” the nurse said, watching the readout. “Fairly strong. Dr. Cross is on her way in.”“It is too early,” I said again, my voice shaking. “It is too early for this.”“Try to stay calm,” she said gently. “We are watching everything closely.”Dr. Cross arrived minutes later, reviewing the monitor with the same careful focus I remembered from before, her expression giving nothing away while she worked. Soren stood beside me, his hand not once loosening its grip on mine, his own face pale with a fear he was not bothering to hide.“Alright.” Dr. Cross finally straightened, and something in her posture eased slightly. “I want to rea
Roza POVI set the phone down slowly, my hand shaking, the words still ringing in my ears louder than anything else in the room.“Roza.” Soren was already beside me, his hand on my shoulder. “What did she say?”“An injunction.” My voice came out thin, disbelieving. “He filed an emergency injunction. I cannot leave the country with the baby. I am bound here, Soren, legally bound to this exact fight, whether I want to be or not.”“You never said you wanted to leave the country.”“I did not.” My voice rose, sharp and sudden, fury finally breaking through the numbness. “That is not the point. The point is he has taken the choice away from me entirely, again, exactly the way he always did, deciding what I am allowed to do with my own life without ever asking me first.”I stood up too fast, the room tilting slightly, and Soren caught my arm gently, steadying me.“Sit down. Please.”“I do not want to sit down.” My hands were shaking, my breath coming too fast. “I left him with nothing, Soren
Roza POVFiona arrived the next morning with a fresh notepad and the particular calm of someone who had heard far stranger things than a betrayed wife and a repentant mistress sitting on the same sofa preparing to work together.“I have gone over the recording you sent,” Fiona said, looking at Gemma. “The one from three days ago. It is admissible, provided we can confirm the timeline and context properly. Are there others?”“Several.” Gemma’s hands were folded tightly in her lap, her voice steadier than it had been the night before, though something fragile still sat underneath it. “I have been recording him for weeks, without fully understanding why at the time. Voice memos, mostly. A few screenshots of messages he sent when he thought I would simply delete them out of fear.”“Send everything to my office today. Do not delete anything, even things that feel embarrassing or unrelated. Context matters more than either of you will expect.” Fiona made a note, her pen quick and precise. “
Roza POVThe room went utterly still. Gemma froze with the phone in her hand, her thumb hovering uselessly over the screen, and Callum’s voice kept coming, loud and unfiltered, filling every corner of my small flat.“Gemma, I know you can hear me. I am not angry. I want you to know that first. I am not angry, I am worried, that is all this is, I am worried about you out there alone.” A pause, breathing ragged on the other end, ice clinking somewhere behind his voice. “Come home. Please. I will do better. I know I have said that before, but I mean it this time, I swear to you I mean it.”Gemma’s hand shook so badly the phone nearly slipped from her fingers. She looked at me, wide eyed, unsure whether to end the call or let it keep running, and something in her paralysis told me she had heard this exact pattern from him too many times before to trust any part of it.“You do not get to decide that from a phone call at midnight,” she said finally, her voice thin.“I am not deciding anythi
Gemma POVThe flat was small and warm and nothing like any room I had lived in for years, and something about its smallness made my chest ache in a way I did not fully understand until I was sitting on Roza’s sofa with a mug of tea I had not asked for pressed into my hands.“You do not have to talk tonight,” Roza said, sitting carefully across from me, her own hand resting against her stomach the way it seemed to now without her noticing. “You can just sleep. We can talk in the morning.”“I want to talk.” My voice came out smaller than I meant it to. “I think if I do not say some of this now, I never will.”She waited, patient in a way I did not deserve, and I stared down at the tea in my hands, watching the steam curl upward, trying to find the shape of a sentence I had been avoiding for weeks.“He grabbed my arm three nights ago,” I said finally. “Hard. Harder than he has ever grabbed me before. I was trying to leave the room during an argument and he would not let me, and when I fi
Roza POV“Absolutely not.” Mira’s voice came sharp through the phone the moment I told her. “Roza, tell me you are joking.”“I am not joking.”“She helped destroy your marriage. She sat across from you eating your soup while she was already sleeping with your husband. And now you want to open your door to her because she sent one frightened text message?”“It was not one text message, Mira. It was months of blocked numbers and voicemails and now this, someone who sounds exactly the way I used to sound, asking for somewhere to go because she has nobody else.” My voice shook, but I did not back down. “I know what that specific kind of fear sounds like. I lived inside it for seven years. I cannot pretend I do not recognize it just because it is coming from her.”Mira was quiet for a long moment. “This is not your responsibility, Roza.”“I know it is not.” I looked over at Soren, sitting quietly across the room, watching me with an expression I could not fully read. “But I keep thinking a







