Chapter 5

The moment the door shut, Seraphina sagged against the wall, breathing hard.

Her heart felt bruised, but not broken. Not anymore.

She grabbed her hidden bag, the small bundle of documents, her phone, and the pregnancy test she couldn’t bear to leave behind.

A tear slid down her cheek, but this time, it wasn’t from weakness.

Adrik’s second message came five minutes later.

Adrik: Go. Now. Side entrance near the conservatory. I’m here.

Seraphina’s breath caught.

She slipped into black clothes, as he instructed. Wrapped her documents inside her coat. Pressed a shaky kiss to her fingertips and placed it on her stomach.

“Hold on, little one,” she whispered. “We’re leaving.”

She cracked her bedroom door open.

Silence.

She crept down the servant hallway, heart pounding with every step.

Voices drifted up from the main foyer, Damian speaking with his men. Lysandra laughing, alcohol sweetening her tone.

Seraphina held her breath as she slipped down the back staircase.

Two guards passed at the far end of the hall.

She ducked behind a column.

They didn’t see her.

Her pulse throbbed violently in her ears.

She reached the conservatory door.

Beyond it, shadow, cold air, and freedom.

She stepped outside.

Adrik was waiting behind the trimmed hedge, dressed in dark clothes, eyes burning with fierce determination.

He grabbed her hand. “We go. Now.”

Seraphina looked back once, at the towering mansion where she’d cried herself to sleep, where she’d been humiliated, belittled, unseen.

Where her child would have been raised in chains. Then she squeezed Adrik’s hand. “I’m ready.”

They ran.

....................

Hours later, the mansion was quiet again.

Damian stepped through the front door with Lysandra on his arm, a faint flush of alcohol on her cheeks.

He was tired. Irritated. Ready to put her to bed and find Seraphina for the sake of appearances, or convenience.

“Goodnight,” he muttered, dismissing Lysandra with a distracted peck to her cheek.

“Mmm. I’ll see you tomorrow,” she purred, brushing past him.

He barely heard her.

Something in the house felt… off.

He climbed the stairs slowly, frowning.

The hallway lights flickered.

A cold draft kissed the back of his neck.

He reached Seraphina’s door and opened it without knocking.

“Seraph...”

Silence.

The room was dark.

Still.

Empty.

The curtains fluttered from the open window.

The closet doors were ajar.

The bed was undisturbed.

The dresser was missing something, papers?

A bag?

Damian stepped inside slowly.

A strange, sharp sensation slid into his chest.

He called her name again.

Louder.

Nothing.

He checked the bathroom.

The closets.

The balcony.

Empty.

He stood in the center of the room, fists clenching and unclenching.

Something wasn’t right.

Something was wrong.

He reached for the lamp and turned it on.

Light spilled across the floor.

His eyes froze.

One detail stood out, small, out of place, wedged deep in the trash bin but not hidden enough. A torn pregnancy test wrapper.

Damian’s breath stopped.

A flicker of fear, and something darker tightened in his chest.

“Seraphina.”

He said her name again.

This time, it sounded like a warning. And a threat. And something almost like... Panic.

He didn’t panic.

He didn’t flinch when guns were aimed at his head.

Didn’t tremble when blood pooled at his feet.

Didn’t blink when men begged him for mercy.

But when he stepped into Seraphina’s empty room and felt the cold air where her warmth should’ve been, his pulse stopped.

Then surged.

“Seraphina,” he said into the silence.

Nothing.

He moved quickly, checking the bathroom, the balcony, the closet, each step sharper, faster, more aggressive.

His breath grew harsher. His pupils contracted.

Blood drained from his face. His fingers tightened around the piece of plastic.

Pregnant.

Was she pregnant?

His chest twisted, physical, visceral, terrifying. A mix of shock, something darker, and something he refused to name.

Seraphina was carrying his child.

His heir.

His weakness.

That last word struck him like a slap.

In his world, love wasn’t affection.

It wasn’t tenderness.

It wasn’t whispered promises in the dark.

Love was a weapon pointed at your own heart.

Love was vulnerability.

Love got you killed.

Love made you stupid.

So he had buried whatever he felt for her.

Crushed it.

Locked it away so deeply that even he pretended it wasn’t there. Because Seraphina Vale, soft, gentle, too kind for his world, had scared him from the very beginning.

He felt something for her.

He always had.

But to show it?

To admit it?

That was the kind of weakness his enemies would carve out of him and hang from a pole.

So he ignored her eyes.

Ignored her tears.

Ignored every spark of feeling she accidentally lit inside him.

He told himself she didn’t matter.

But now, staring at that wrapper, he felt something he had not felt since childhood. 

Fear.

Raw. Animal. Consuming.

And the thought slammed into him.

What if someone took her?

What if his enemies had found out?

What if they came while he was out with Lysandra?

What if they killed her?

What if the child, his child, was gone?

His world narrowed to a single, suffocating point.

“Guards!” Damian roared.

Men rushed into the bedroom instantly.

“Where is she?” Damian demanded.

“S.. sir, Lady Seraphina… she wasn’t seen leaving. No reports..”

“So she didn’t walk out,” Damian snapped. “She was taken.”

The guards exchanged uneasy glances.

Damian’s eyes blazed with a cold fury that could shatter bone.

“No one leaves this estate without being seen,” he said. “Unless someone forced her out.”

He grabbed one guard by the collar.

“Start a lockdown. Now.”

“But sir, she could still be..”

“DO IT.”

The guard stumbled out.

Another spoke hesitantly.

“Sir… is it possible she left on her own...”

Damian’s fist smashed into the wall so hard the plaster cracked.

“She wouldn’t leave.”

His voice was dangerous. Low. Shaking with something the men had never heard from him.

“She wouldn’t just run,” he said again.

“She isn’t that stupid.”

But even as he said it, a small, poisonous doubt pricked him.