Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 41 - Chapitre 50

LUCAS'S POVI did not sleep that night, turning the message over in my mind until the numbers on my phone finally read past four in the morning. I know everything. Three words, no name attached, no follow up when I tried calling the number back and reached only an automated tone telling me it was no longer in service.By the time the sun came up, I had decided against telling Anna. There was nothing concrete to tell her, only a threat with no shape to it, and I did not want to hand her another reason to be afraid in a house already full of them. I told myself I would watch carefully instead, notice anything unusual, and deal with whatever came without dragging her into a panic over something that might amount to nothing at all.It was a decision I regretted almost immediately, though not for the reason I expected.I spent the early hours before breakfast running through every possibility of who might have sent it. Rose seemed the most obvious answer, given her visit only days earlier

JONATHAN'S POVThe café on Bellmont had not changed much since the last time I set foot in it, years ago now, back when Lucas and I used to duck in after long nights at the office because it was the only place open that late and quiet enough to think. Rose was already seated in the corner booth when I arrived, dressed with more restraint than usual, as though she had decided understatement would serve her better this time."You came," she said, sounding almost surprised."You told me to."I sat across from her, refusing the coffee the waitress offered, wanting nothing about this meeting to feel longer than it had to be. Rose studied me for a moment before reaching into her bag and setting a folded ultrasound image on the table between us, the grainy black and white shape unmistakable even from where I sat."A boy," she said again, quieter this time, without the calculation that had colored her voice on the phone. "I know you do not trust anything I tell you, Jonathan, and I understand

ANNA'S POVThe footsteps on the terrace that night belonged only to a member of the catering staff, checking whether the doors needed locking before the last of the guests departed, and Lucas and I separated so quickly that neither of us had time to feel relief before the moment had already dissolved into something safer and more distant. We returned to the gala separately, careful not to be seen entering together, and spoke no further about what had almost happened between us that evening.It did not stay unspoken for long.The days that followed passed in a strange, suspended quiet, both of us keeping careful distance in the house while something unresolved hummed beneath every polite exchange we managed in front of others. I caught him watching me sometimes across the dinner table, his expression carefully neutral for anyone else's benefit, and I wondered how many more nights either of us could keep pretending that the terrace had settled anything at all.Four days later, Jonathan

LUCAS'S POVI did not tell Anna about the second message right away. I told myself it was to protect her from the same sleepless dread that had kept me awake most of the night, though if I was honest with myself, some part of it was simple cowardice, an unwillingness to watch her face fall the way mine had when I first read those words.I spent the following days trying, without success, to trace the number, calling in a favor from a contact who worked in telecommunications, only to be told the account had been set up through channels specifically designed to avoid exactly this kind of tracing. Whoever was watching us had planned for the possibility of being hunted. That realization unsettled me more than the messages themselves.I ran through every name I could think of during those sleepless nights, Rose first and most obviously, though something about the precision of the messages did not quite fit her usual style of confrontation, loud and public rather than patient and anonymous.

ROSE'S POVI had learned a long time ago that people underestimated women like me, and I had learned to use that underestimation the way other people used money or connections, quietly, patiently, and to devastating effect when the moment finally called for it.Jonathan believed the meeting at the café had settled something between us, that his agreement to a proper paternity test meant I would sit back now and wait obediently for whatever verdict his doctors decided to hand down. He had always been like that, confident that kindness offered on his own terms erased whatever debt he actually owed. He had humiliated me in front of half the city when he married Anna instead of even considering what we once had, had let his lawyers threaten me the first time I tried to claim what was rightfully my son's, and I had no intention of simply waiting patiently for his mercy now.I remembered the early years with him clearly, before the arrangement with Anna's family had reduced our history to a