"Serg, ever since you took Elena away, Lewis has completely lost his mind. He’s ripping through every one of our safe houses. This is the last place we have left. We cannot keep this woman here — if Lewis finds her, we’re finished."

Lewis was looking for me.

Just hearing his name split something open in my chest.

My mind had wiped most of what I knew of him, but my body hadn’t forgotten. It still remembered what it felt like to be near him, to belong to him. The only memory I had was from when I was seventeen — Lewis at the old Hale house, sitting beside me at the piano, patient and quiet, guiding my fingers across the keys. That calm, lean boy had apparently unraveled completely.

I pressed my hand over my mouth to hold back the sound threatening to escape. Tears slipped silently down my face and fell onto the floor. I just needed to hear something — anything — about him. The note I’d found had told me we’d been separated for over a month. I couldn’t imagine what that had done to him. Even knowing I was alive, he must have been in agony.

Carl...

Sergio, though, didn’t flinch. His voice came out flat and cold. "Isn’t this exactly what you deserve? You destroyed lives, tore families apart, left people in ruin. If you get caught, you have no one to blame but yourselves." A sharp crack followed — his mother had swept the fruit platter off the table, sending everything scattering across the floor.

"You’re just as heartless as the rest of them!" she screamed. "If I had known you’d turn out this way, I never would have had you. I should have ended it before you ever drew your first breath!"

"You’ve ended plenty of lives," Sergio said quietly. "All those women who got caught — and the children they were carrying. You made sure none of them ever made it into the world."

"You wicked, ungrateful child!"

She raised her hand to strike him, but he caught her wrist without effort. "The only thing connecting us is blood. If I’d had a choice, I would never have been born into a family like yours." His grip didn’t tighten, but it didn’t release either. "I’m giving you both until tomorrow morning to leave. If you’re still here, I’ll make sure you regret it."

His mother’s chest heaved. "You think the authorities will just look the other way for you?"

"I was never part of your business. I left at thirteen and never looked back. I never touched any of it. They have no reason to come after me — but you? You’ll get exactly what you’ve earned." Then his voice dropped lower, carrying an edge I recognized as something beyond ordinary anger. "If either of you lays a hand on Elena, I will come for you. Lewis has already gone to the edge. Push me, and I’ll go further."

He turned and walked away.

I scrambled back to my room, but he was faster. I hadn’t even reached the bed when he appeared in the doorway, the faint light from the staircase lamp sketching his outline in the dark. He stepped inside slowly.

"You heard everything."

It wasn’t a question. I pressed my hand to my stomach and stepped back, feigning confusion. "Heard what?"

"Coco." His voice was quiet, almost gentle. "I’m your doctor. Don’t."

He closed the distance between us steadily, calmly, until the back of my knees hit the mattress and I had nowhere left to go. His fingers grazed my cheek — feeling the cold sweat there, the tremor moving through me.

"Are you afraid of me?"

How could I not be? If I hadn’t been pregnant, I would have fought him without hesitation. But I had two babies inside me, and that changed everything. My whole body was shaking.

"I’m not scared," I whispered.

A soft laugh escaped him. "You’re trembling, Coco."

It didn’t comfort me. If anything, that quiet laugh made it worse. I understood now that the version of him I’d known had been a carefully constructed front — composed, professional, safe. That mask was gone. This was who he actually was. "I won’t hurt you," he said, his thumb brushing along my jaw. "Or the babies. Even if you heard everything, it doesn’t matter. You’ll forget it soon enough."

He leaned down and pressed his lips to the small red mole on my forehead.

A shiver tore through me — not warmth, not comfort. Something cold and wrong, like a hand closing around something it had no right to hold.

I couldn’t move. I stood there frozen, barely breathing.

"All you need to hold onto is this," he murmured against my skin. "I love you, Coco. Forget Lewis. Forget all of it. I’ll raise your children as my own. I’ll take care of all three of you. When you’re well again, we can build something new together."

His lips drifted slowly from my forehead toward my nose, and when I realized where they were heading, something snapped inside me. I jerked back and sat up, just barely stopping him. I couldn’t afford to make him angry — I had no idea what he was capable of in this state — so I gripped my stomach and gasped softly. "The babies... they’re kicking."

He placed both hands on either side of me, boxing me in. The low light hid his expression, but I could feel the weight of his stare like pressure against my skin. "Dr. Serg," I breathed, barely making sound. "I’m pregnant. You wouldn’t—"

He was quiet for a long moment. Then he exhaled. "I waited for you, Coco. I gave you time to heal after Julian. I held back, thinking I was doing the right thing — and then everything went sideways, and I lost you to him. My greatest regret is that I didn’t act sooner. If I had taken you away back then, you never would have died. You never would have found Lewis."

Slowly, he lowered himself to one knee in front of me. His hands wrapped around mine with a desperation that felt almost like grief. "I love you just as much as he does," he said quietly, his eyes searching mine. "Can’t you give me even a little of that? Even just a small piece?"