Daria POV:

The car ride was a dizzying smear of neon lights and agonizing bumps.

Every vibration sent a fresh spasm of nausea rolling through me.

Alois drove with one hand on the wheel, the other pressing a towel hard against the bleeding wound on my arm.

"Don't sleep," he commanded.

"It hurts," I mumbled, my words slurring.

"Good. Pain means you're alive."

He swerved sharply into an alleyway behind a dilapidated veterinary clinic.

Not a hospital.

We couldn't go to a hospital. Kaeden had eyes everywhere.

Alois kicked the back door open, hauling me out and carrying me inside.

The sharp sting of antiseptic mixed with the earthy scent of dog food hit me.

A man in a lab coat rushed out.

He wasn't Dr. Gates.

He was older, his hands shaking.

"Alois? You said you were bringing a dog with a gunshot wound!" the vet stammered, eyes widening.

"Plans changed," Alois growled, depositing me on the cold stainless steel table. "Save her. And the child."

"I'm a vet! I can't-I treat animals, I don't-"

Alois pulled a gun and slammed it on the counter.

"You're a doctor. Figure it out."

The vet swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing, and grabbed a stethoscope.

He ripped open my blouse.

He hissed through his teeth when he saw the burns.

"Electrical," he muttered, horror in his voice. "Who did this?"

"Is there a heartbeat?" Alois asked, cutting through the question.

The vet moved the ultrasound probe over my bruised stomach.

Silence.

My world stopped.

Please. God, please. Take me, but not him.

Whoosh-whoosh. Whoosh-whoosh.

A faint, rapid rhythm filled the room.

I let out a sob that felt like it tore my chest open.

"Fetal heartbeat is distressed but present," the vet said, working with frantic efficiency now. "She's dehydrated. In shock. Severe electrical trauma. I need to stabilize her before her kidneys shut down."

"Do it," Alois said.

He stood by the door, watching the alley, his gun loose but ready in hand.

I looked at him, vision swimming.

"Why?" I whispered.

He turned his gaze to me.

For the first time, I saw something other than cold lethality in his eyes.

I saw a debt.

"Three years ago," he said quietly. "My daughter. Leukemia. The insurance company denied the experimental treatment. You were on the board of the charity."

I blinked, the memory hazy through the pain.

I had signed thousands of papers.

"You pushed it through," he said. "You paid the deductible from your personal account. You didn't know who I was. You just saw a dying girl."

Tears leaked from my eyes, hot tracks on my cold skin.

"She lived?"

"She's seven now," Alois said, his voice softening just a fraction. "She likes horses."

He looked away, his jaw tightening.

"Kaeden threw you away like garbage. But to me... you are the reason my world still spins."

The vet stuck a needle in my arm.

"I'm giving her a sedative," the vet said. "She needs to rest to lower the stress on the fetus."

The room began to tilt and spin.

"Kaeden..." I murmured, the drug pulling me under like a heavy tide.

"Kaeden is dead to you," Alois's voice was the last thing I heard. "You died in a fire tonight, Daria. The woman you were is gone."

Daria POV

I jerked awake to the acrid scent of smoke.

Panic clawed at my throat.

I bolted upright, gasping, my lungs straining for air that wasn't tainted with the chemical sting of the clinic.

But I wasn't in the clinic anymore.

I was in a cabin.

Rough-hewn wood beams stretched overhead, a fireplace crackled warmly in the corner, and heavy velvet curtains were drawn tight against the world.

My hands flew to my belly.

It was still there. Still round.

I pressed my palm against the curve, and a small, distinct kick answered me.

Relief washed over me, so powerful and sudden that the room spun.

The heavy oak door creaked open.

Alois walked in, balancing a wooden tray.

He looked... different. The transformation was jarring.

Gone was the pristine, tailored suit. In its place, he wore a worn flannel shirt and jeans, the handle of an axe hooked casually through his belt loop.

He looked... startlingly human.

"Eat," he commanded softly, setting the tray on the bedside table. Steam rose from a bowl of soup beside a thick slice of bread and a glass of water.

"Where are we?" I croaked, my voice rough.

"Nowhere," he replied, his tone flat. "North. Far from Chicago. Deep in the blind spot of the world."

He pulled a wooden chair opposite the bed and sat.

"Turn on the TV," he said.

I frowned, confusion warring with fear, but I picked up the remote.

The screen flickered to life, tuned to a local news channel.

BREAKING NEWS: TRAGEDY STRIKES THE BURRIS DYNASTY.

My heart hammered a frantic rhythm against my ribs.

The screen showed a building consumed by an inferno, orange flames licking the night sky.

It was Dr. Gates' clinic.

The chyron ran across the bottom in stark red letters: CAPO'S WIFE PERISHES IN CLINIC FIRE.

"What did you do?" I whispered, the blood draining from my face.

"I cleaned up the mess," Alois said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "I went back to Gates' clinic after I dropped you at the safe house. I located a Jane Doe in the city morgue-unclaimed, roughly your height-and brought her there. I slipped your wedding ring onto her finger."

He paused, his eyes dark pools of resolve.

"Then I burned it to the ground. With Gates inside."

I stared at the screen, unable to look away.

Kaeden was there.

He was standing in front of the roaring inferno, physically restrained by two of his largest guards. He looked devastated.

He was screaming my name.

Even through the grainy footage, he looked like a man whose soul had been ripped violently from his chest.

"He thinks I'm dead," I said, my voice trembling.

"He has to," Alois stated. "It is the only way you stay safe. If he knows you are alive, Clemmie will never stop hunting you. And Kaeden... he is too weak to protect you from her."

"He killed me," I said, the realization settling into my marrow like lead. "He signed the paper, Alois. He agreed to let them cut me open."

"Yes," Alois said, not sparing me the truth. "He did."

I watched Kaeden on the screen.

He fell to his knees in the soot and ash, burying his face in his hands, his body shaking with sobs.

It was a performance.

Or maybe it was regret.

It didn't matter.

The Daria who loved him died in that chair the moment he ordered the voltage up.

I placed a protective hand over my stomach.

"He doesn't get to mourn me," I said, my voice hardening into something brittle and sharp. "And he never gets to know about her."

Alois nodded slowly.

"What now?" I asked.

Alois leaned forward, elbows on his knees.

"Now, we wait," he said. "We let him rot in his guilt. We let Clemmie believe she has won. And when you are strong... when the baby is born..."

He didn't finish the sentence.

He didn't have to.

I looked at the destruction on the screen, then at the contained fire crackling in the hearth.

"I'm not Daria Burris anymore," I said.

Alois stood up, towering in the small room.

"No," he agreed. "You are something else entirely."

He walked to the door, pausing with his hand on the latch.

"Rest. The storm is coming, Daria. And when it hits, we will be the ones holding the lightning."

He closed the door, leaving me in the dim light.

I turned back to the TV.

I watched my husband cry for the wife he had murdered.

And for the first time in days, I didn't cry.

Slowly, a smile curved my lips.

Because ghosts can haunt you.

And I was going to be the most terrifying ghost Kaeden Burris had ever seen.