Haven POV

The rhythmic beeping of a heart monitor was the first thing to pierce the darkness.

Then came the smell-sharp antiseptic and stale coffee.

My body felt shattered, as if I had been run over by a truck. Every inch of my skin throbbed or stung from the glass and the fall.

I opened my eyes.

Connor was sitting in the chair next to the bed, his head buried in his hands.

He looked wrecked.

Good.

He lifted his head and saw me awake.

"Haven," he breathed, reaching for my hand.

I pulled my hand away.

It was a small movement, but he flinched as if I had slapped him.

"Thank God," he whispered, ignoring the rejection. "I went back. I swear to you, Haven. I went back with the whole crew ten minutes later. You were gone. We found blood on the glass. I thought..."

"You thought I was dead," I rasped. My throat felt like I had swallowed razor blades.

"I had to get her out, Haven," he said, his voice taking on that pleading tone I used to find endearing. "It was a blood debt. Her father died for me. If I let her die, I lose the respect of the Old Guard. You know the rules."

I stared at the ceiling.

The rules never stated that a husband leaves his wife to be raped and butchered to save a girl he has known for six months.

"I am thirsty," I said.

He scrambled to get a plastic cup of water with a bendy straw.

He held it to my lips.

I took a sip, watching him.

He was the Underboss of the city, a man who commanded fear, yet here he was, shaking.

A nurse bustled into the room.

"Mr. Jones," she said, her voice urgent. "It is Ms. Chan. She is hyperventilating again. She is asking for you."

Connor froze.

He looked at me, then at the door.

"She is in shock," he explained to me, standing up. "She has never seen a gun before."

"Go," I said.

My voice was flat.

He hesitated.

"I will be right back," he promised. "Just let me calm her down."

He left the room.

I waited ten seconds.

Then I ripped the IV from my arm.

Blood welled up, dripping onto the pristine white sheets, but I didn't feel it.

I slid my legs off the bed.

The room spun.

I gripped the IV pole for support and shuffled to the door.

The hallway was quiet, the night shift in full swing.

I heard sobbing coming from a room three doors down.

I walked toward it, my hospital gown gaping at the back, my bare feet cold on the linoleum.

The door was ajar.

I saw them.

Gemma was sitting up in bed, looking perfectly fine, not a scratch on her.

Connor was sitting on the edge of her mattress.

He was stroking her hair.

She leaned into him, burying her face in his neck.

He kissed her forehead.

It wasn't a comforting peck.

It was slow.

It was tender.

It was the way he used to kiss me after a long day.

One of the nurses at the station whispered to another, unaware I was standing there.

"That's the third night he has slept in her room. Poor wife doesn't even know."

I turned around.

I walked back to my room, found my ruined clothes in a plastic bag, and dressed with shaking hands.

I walked out of the Family-controlled hospital and hailed a cab.

"Take me to the St. Jude's Clinic," I told the driver.

I needed a doctor who wasn't on my husband's payroll.

Haven POV

Dr. Evans, the physician at the private clinic, was a small woman with eyes like flint and hands that wasted no movement.

She stitched the laceration on my thigh with efficient, unsentimental tugs before checking my ribs for fractures.

Then, she ran the blood work.

I sat on the edge of the exam table, the paper crinkling beneath me, staring blankly at a colorful poster about nutrition. I felt absolutely nothing. Just a hollow, ringing silence.

Dr. Evans returned a few minutes later, a clipboard tucked against her chest.

"Mrs. Jones," she said, her tone professional but guarded. "You are aware that you are pregnant?"

The air left the room. The world didn't just tilt; it stopped.

I gripped the edge of the table, my knuckles turning white.

"What?"

"Six weeks," she stated, flipping a page. "It is a miracle the fall didn't cause a detachment. But the heartbeat is strong."

Trembling, I pressed a hand to my stomach.

We had tried for five years.

Years of failed IVF cycles. Endless rounds of hormone injections that bruised my skin and battered my soul.

Nothing had worked.

And now, when my marriage was a rotting corpse festering in the sun, life had finally taken root.

This was the heir.

This was the future of the Apex Crew.

This changed everything.

I thanked the doctor, my voice distant to my own ears, and left.

I returned to the penthouse.

The apartment was a mausoleum of white marble and glass-cold, modern, and utterly empty.

Connor came home two hours later.

As soon as he walked in, the scent hit me. He smelled like her perfume.

Vanilla and deceit.

He froze when he saw me sitting on the white leather sofa, waiting.

"Haven," he breathed, visible relief washing over his features. "The hospital said you checked out against medical advice. I was worried sick."

"Sit down, Connor."

He perched on the coffee table in front of me, reaching out to take my hands. His palms were damp.

I didn't let him touch me.

"I have two things to tell you," I said, my voice razor-flat.

He nodded quickly, looking like a puppy who knew he had soiled the rug but hoped for a treat anyway.

"First, I am pregnant."

His eyes went wide.

His mouth fell open, a silent gasp of shock.

"You... you're sure?"

"Dr. Evans confirmed it."

A smile broke across his face, genuine and blindingly bright. It was the smile of the man I used to love.

"An heir," he whispered, reverence in his tone. "We finally did it. Haven, this fixes everything. This is a new start for us."

"Second," I said, slicing through his joy like a guillotine. "Gemma leaves."

His smile faltered, then vanished.

"What?"

"She leaves the city," I commanded. "Tonight. You cut all ties. You never speak to her again."

"Haven, be reasonable," he said, standing up and beginning to pace the room. "She has nowhere to go. She is traumatized. I can't just throw her out on the street like garbage."

"She is a mole, Connor."

He stopped pacing and looked at me as if I were the one who had lost my mind.

"She is a kid," he scoffed, shaking his head. "She barely knows how to use a phone. You are being paranoid. You are jealous."

"I am your wife," I said, my voice rising, vibrating with the force of my ultimatum. "I am the mother of your child. Choose. Right now. Her, or us."

The silence stretched, taut as a wire.

Then, his phone buzzed in his pocket.

He pulled it out and looked at the screen.

It was her.

I could see the name lighting up the dim room, a beacon of my destruction.

Connor looked at me, then down at the phone. Conflict warred in his eyes.

"I have to take this," he said, his voice dropping. "It might be an emergency regarding the ambush."

He answered the phone.

"I am coming," he said into the receiver.

He hung up and looked at me with apologetic, cowardly eyes.

"I have to go," he said, backing toward the door. "Just for an hour. We will talk when I get back."

He grabbed his keys.

He walked out the door.

He chose.

I sat there for a moment, the silence of the penthouse settling around me like a shroud. Then, I picked up my phone.

I dialed the number of the private investigator I had kept on retainer for strict business background checks.

"I want everything on Gemma Chan," I said into the line, my voice devoid of mercy.

"Dig until you hit hell."

Haven POV

The file hit the mahogany desk with a heavy, final thud.

It had taken the PI three days to compile everything.

Three agonizing days wherein Connor had barely spoke to me, far too busy managing the fallout of the ambush and comforting the so-called poor victim.

With trembling hands, I opened the folder.

The evidence was damning. Photos of Gemma meeting with a Capo from the George crime family. Bank transfers routing offshore funds. Territory maps found buried deep in her cloud storage.

She wasn't just a mole.

She was the architect of the ambush that had almost killed me.

I didn't wait for Connor to come home.

I tracked Gemma's phone signal instantly.

She was at our private club, using the indoor pool.

The sheer audacity of it stole the breath from my lungs.

I took two of my personal guards-men who were loyal to the paycheck I signed, not the oath Connor swore.

We marched into the pool area.

The air was thick with oppressive humidity and the sharp sting of chlorine.

Gemma was floating on a pink raft, wearing a bikini that cost more than her father's car.

She looked up and saw me. But she didn't look scared.

She smirked.

"Hey, Haven," she called out, her voice dripping with false sweetness. "Connor said you were resting. Is the baby okay? Or did you lose it like you lost his attention?"

Red vision clouded my sight.

"Grab her," I ordered.

My guards didn't hesitate.

They waded into the water, silent and efficient. They flipped the raft and dragged her screaming to the edge.

They hauled her onto the wet tiles.

I kicked a folded towel onto her face.

"Hold her down."

One guard pinned her arms, the other her legs.

I grabbed a bucket of pool water.

"You want to play games, Gemma?" I asked, my voice deadly calm. "Let's play."

I poured the water over the towel covering her face.

She thrashed.

She choked.

It was crude waterboarding, but effective.

I stopped the flow.

"Who do you work for?" I demanded.

She coughed, sputtering water from her lungs.

"Go to hell," she wheezed.

I poured again.

This time longer.

Her body convulsed violently against the tiles.

Suddenly, the doors to the pool deck burst open.

"Haven!"

Connor sprinted across the tiles.

He didn't look at me. He didn't ask why.

He tackled the guard holding her arms with the force of a linebacker.

"Get off her!" he roared.

Gemma ripped the towel off her face, gasping for air, and instantly transforming into the victim.

"She tried to kill me!" she screamed, crawling toward Connor like a wounded animal. "She is crazy!"

Connor wrapped his arms around her, shielding her body with his own.

He looked up at me with pure hatred burning in his eyes.

"What is wrong with you?" he shouted. "She is a civilian!"

"She is a rat, Connor!" I yelled back.

I grabbed the file from the table and threw the photos at him.

They scattered across the wet floor like confetti.

"Look at them! She set us up! She is working for the George family!"

He didn't even look down.

He kicked the photos into the pool.

"I don't care!" he screamed. "You crossed a line, Haven. You are becoming a monster."

A sudden pain sliced through my abdomen.

Sharp.

Hot.

I doubled over, clutching my stomach.

"Connor," I gasped, my voice breaking. "Something is wrong."

He stood up, lifting Gemma into his arms bridal style.

She buried her face in his chest, sobbing fake tears.

"Stay away from her," Connor warned me, his voice ice cold. "If you come near her again, I will forget you are my wife."

He turned and walked away.

The photos of her betrayal floated on the surface of the blue water, dissolving slowly into nothingness.

I fell to my knees.

A dark crimson flower of blood bloomed on the white tiles between my legs.