The guest wing became my prison. Three days after the failed ritual, I woke to Cameron standing in my doorway. The morning light from the window behind him turned his silhouette into something skeletal.

"You poisoned me." His voice was flat, mechanical. "All those teas. Those needles. You've been making me sick."

I sat up slowly, my hand instinctively moving to my stomach. "Cameron, that's not—"

"Ava explained everything." He stepped into the room, and I saw the gray creeping up his neck like frost on glass. He didn't notice. "You're a witch. You've been cursing me for years, keeping me weak so I'd depend on you."

The words were Ava's. I could hear her honey-sweet poison in every syllable.

"Since I stopped your rituals, I've been getting stronger." He held up his hand—the one with the split finger. The wound had spread, the edges of the tear now reaching his knuckle. The skin around it had the texture of old parchment. "See? It's healing. Ava says it's my body purging your toxins."

I stared at the necrotizing flesh he believed was healing. "Cameron, please. Look at yourself. Really look."

"I am looking." His eyes were wild, unfocused. "I'm looking at my wife, who's been sabotaging me. Who's jealous of Ava and our baby." He leaned closer, and I smelled the rot beneath the sage oil. "Stay away from her. Stay away from us. If anything happens to that child, I'll know it was you."

He left. I heard him return to the master bedroom, heard Ava's delighted laughter through the walls.

My phone buzzed. Jax. *I found something. Meet me at the shop. Now.*

---

The club was called Velvet, tucked into a basement in the Meatpacking District. Jax stood in the alley behind it, a crowbar in one hand and a leather messenger bag in the other.

"You broke in?" I asked.

"Ava's locker." He handed me the bag. "Look."

Inside, I found invoices from a theatrical supply company. *Prosthetic pregnancy belly—silicone, medical grade. $2,400.* Receipts for bulk orders of hallucinogenic sage oil from an underground herbalist I knew dealt in illegal substances. And printouts of text messages.

I read them twice, my hands shaking.

*Marcus Sterling: Once the baby's born, we move. Declare him incompetent. You get the wife's share, I get the company.*

*Ava: And if the wife doesn't leave quietly?*

*Marcus: Then we make sure she has an accident.*

Jax's hand was on my shoulder, warm and steady. "We go to Cameron. Show him this. End it now."

"He won't believe me."

"Then I'll make him believe." His voice was steel wrapped in silk. "Get your things. You're not staying in that penthouse another night."

We drove in silence, the evidence bag sitting between us like a bomb. When we reached the building, the doorman's face went pale.

"Mrs. Brooks, Mr. Hamilton—Mr. Brooks left instructions. You're not to—"

Jax walked past him. I followed.

The elevator ride felt endless. When the doors opened to the penthouse, Cameron was waiting.

He looked at Jax, then at me. Something dark and possessive twisted his features. "You brought him here. Into our home."

"Cameron, we need to talk." I held up the bag. "It's about Ava."

"No." He moved fast, faster than a dying man should be able to. He grabbed my wrist, his fingers ice-cold and unnaturally strong. "You're having an affair. That's what this is. You and your childhood sweetheart, plotting against me."

"Let her go." Jax's voice dropped to that dangerous softness.

Cameron's grip tightened. I felt bones grind. "She's my wife. Mine. Not yours."

"Cameron, please." I tried to pull away. "Look at the evidence. Ava's pregnancy is fake. She's using you."

"Liar." He shoved me backward. I stumbled, caught myself against the wall. "You're the liar. You and your rituals and your cold hands. Ava warned me you'd try this."

Jax stepped between us, his body a shield. "Touch her again, and I'll—"

"You'll what?" Cameron's laugh was unhinged. "Fight me for her? She's not worth fighting for. She's barren. Cold. Dead inside."

The word hit like a slap. Dead. He called me dead while his own flesh rotted off his bones.

"I'm pregnant." The words came out before I could stop them. "Twelve weeks. I'm carrying your child, Cameron. The real heir."

Silence. Cameron stared at me, his face cycling through confusion, disbelief, rage.

"You're lying," he said finally. "You're lying to compete with Ava."

"I'm not—"

"Liar!" He lunged. Jax caught him, and they crashed into the coffee table. Glass shattered. Cameron's fist connected with Jax's jaw, and I heard the crack of bone.

I screamed. Ran forward. Cameron's elbow caught me in the stomach.

The pain was immediate, blinding. I doubled over, my hands clutching my abdomen. Something warm and wet spread between my legs.

No. No, no, no.

Jax was shouting. Cameron was backing away, his face pale with dawning horror. I sank to my knees on the marble floor, watching my miracle bleed out in a spreading crimson pool.

"June." Jax's arms were around me. "Stay with me. Stay with me."

But I was already gone, falling into the dark where my little spark had been.

The argument spilled out of the living room and into the foyer, echoing off the vaulted ceilings like a curse. Cameron paced in front of the grand staircase, his movements jerky and unnatural. The sage oil Ava had been dosing him with clung to his skin, a sickly-sweet shroud masking the graying tone of his complexion. He looked manic, his chest heaving with a breath he didn't actually need.

"You're jealous," he rasped, pointing a shaking finger at me. The necrosis on his hand had spread, the skin around his fingernails turning the color of wet ash. He didn't even feel it. "You can't stand that she's giving me what you never could. A legacy. Life."

"I am giving you life!" My voice broke, raw and desperate. I pressed my hands against my stomach, shielding the twelve-week miracle growing there. "I have bled for you every month for five years, Cameron. I have stitched your soul to your bones. And I am carrying your child right now."

He stopped. For a second, the fog in his eyes seemed to clear. He looked at my abdomen, confusion warring with the drugs in his system.

Then Ava screamed.

She stood at the top of the marble staircase, clutching the railing with one hand and her prosthetic belly with the other. Her face was a mask of theatrical terror.

"Cameron!" she shrieked, her voice piercing the tension. "She's trying to hex the baby! I can feel it! She's using her blood magic to stop its heart!"

It was a lie so absurd it should have been laughable, but to a man high on hallucinogens and paranoia, it was a command. Cameron’s head snapped toward me, the confusion instantly replaced by a feral, protective rage. The whites of his eyes were veined with red.

"Don't you touch them," he growled, closing the distance between us.

"Cameron, listen to me—"

"I said stop!"

He lunged. It wasn't a calculated strike; it was a blind, thrashing shove meant to clear a path to his mistress. But we were standing at the edge of the drop. His cold, dead hands slammed into my shoulders with supernatural force.

My heels slipped on the polished marble. The world tilted sideways.

I reached for him, but my fingers only grazed his sleeve. Then there was nothing but air. I fell backward, the chandelier spinning above me in a dizzying blur. My body struck the first step, then the next, a brutal cacophony of cracking bone and tearing flesh. I tumbled down the flight, instinctively curling around my stomach, trying to turn my own body into a shield.

The final impact against the foyer floor knocked the air from my lungs. Darkness rushed in at the edges of my vision. Through the ringing in my ears, I heard Jax shouting my name, a sound of pure, unadulterated agony. And faintly, from the top of the stairs, I heard Ava’s sharp, victorious intake of breath.

Then the pain in my abdomen exploded, tearing through me like a hot knife, and I knew—with a certainty that shattered me more than the fall—that the spark was gone.

***

The hospital room smelled of antiseptic and pity. I woke to the rhythmic beeping of machines that monitored a life that was no longer whole. My left arm was in a cast, my ribs taped tight, but the physical pain was a dull roar compared to the silence in my womb.

Jax sat in the chair beside the bed, his head in his hands. He looked like he hadn’t moved in hours. His shirt was stained with my blood.

"June?" He lifted his head as I stirred. His eyes were red-rimmed, haunted.

I didn't need to ask. I could feel the hollowness inside me, a void where the hum of magic and life used to be. The connection to the baby—the impossible thread I had woven from love and ancient herbs—was severed.

"The doctor..." Jax’s voice cracked. He reached for my hand, his grip trembling. "There was too much trauma. They couldn't save it."

I stared at the ceiling tiles, counting the perforations. One, two, three. Tears slid hot and fast into my hairline, silent and endless. I didn't scream. I didn't wail. I just felt something inside me die—not just the baby, but the last tether binding me to Cameron. The love I had held for him, the duty that had enslaved me, it all bled out on that marble floor.

I closed my eyes and reached out with my senses. I could still feel the faint, rotting pulse of Cameron’s soul anchor across the city, but it no longer felt like an obligation. It felt like a tumor.

"Get the car, Jax," I whispered.

"June, you can't. You have internal bruising, a concussion—"

I turned to look at him, and he stopped. He saw the shift in my eyes. The meek, sacrificial wife had died on that staircase. What lay in the hospital bed was something else entirely.

"I am not staying here," I said, my voice cold and steady. "Take me to the lawyer."

***

Two days later, I sat in the plush leather chair of a high-rise office in Midtown, ignoring the throbbing ache in my ribs. My lawyer, a sharp-eyed woman named Evelyn, slid a thick document across the mahogany desk.

"Are you sure about the terms, Mrs. Brooks?" she asked, her pen hovering. "Usually, in cases of... domestic disputes, we advise a cooling-off period."

"There is no cooling off," I said. I picked up the pen. My hand was bandaged, but my grip was iron. "I want a full dissolution of the marriage. Irreconcilable differences. Cruelty."

I looked down at the papers. *June Owens vs. Cameron Brooks.*

I wasn't just filing for divorce. I was signing his death warrant. Without me, without the ritual I had denied him for weeks, he was already a walking corpse. This was just the paperwork to make it official.

I signed my name with a flourish, the ink dark and permanent.

"Serve him today," I told Evelyn, standing up. The room spun slightly, but I locked my knees and forced the weakness down. "I want him to know exactly what he lost."