The address Atticus gave me was on Park Avenue. Upper East Side. My old neighborhood.

I stood on the sidewalk clutching the manila envelope, staring up at the limestone facade of a building I'd walked past a thousand times as a child. The doorman wore white gloves. Through the glass doors, I could see marble floors that caught the afternoon light like water.

"Miss?" The doorman held the door open, his expression professionally blank.

I walked inside. The elevator was all mirrors and brass, and I watched my reflection multiply into infinity as we rose. Forty-two floors. The penthouse.

The doors opened directly into a private foyer. Before I could knock, the door swung open.

Clara stood there in a silk robe the color of champagne, holding an actual glass of champagne. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, and her lips curved into something that wasn't quite a smile.

"Delilah." She said my name like she'd been expecting me. Like we were old friends. "Come in."

I stepped past her into the living room and stopped breathing.

Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked Central Park. The furniture was velvet and leather, arranged on Persian rugs that probably cost more than our entire Brooklyn apartment. Crystal decanters caught the light on a bar cart. Everything gleamed.

And there, sprawled on a navy velvet sofa like he owned the world, was Atticus.

He wore a suit I'd never seen before—charcoal gray, perfectly tailored, the kind that whispered money instead of shouting it. His hair was styled. His shoes were Italian leather. He looked like he'd stepped out of a magazine spread titled "Manhattan's Most Eligible Bachelors."

He looked nothing like the man who'd sat at our kitchen table three days ago with his head in his hands.

"Delilah." He stood, smoothing his jacket. "Right on time."

The envelope slipped from my fingers. Papers scattered across the hardwood.

Atticus crossed the room in three strides and gathered them up, his movements unhurried. He flipped through the pages, and his smile widened. "Perfect. All signed. You really are the perfect incubator."

The word hit me like a slap. "What?"

"Incubator," Clara repeated from behind me. She'd closed the door. Locked it. The click echoed. "Breeding stock. Cow. Take your pick."

My hand found my locket. The metal was cold.

Atticus set the papers on a glass coffee table and turned to face me fully. "Did you really think we needed three million dollars? Look around, Delilah. We live here."

The room tilted. I grabbed the back of a chair to steady myself. "I don't understand."

"The wealthy couple," Clara said, moving to Atticus's side. Her hand slid up his chest, possessive. Intimate. "That's us, sweetheart. It was always us."

"Five years." Atticus's voice had changed. The warmth was gone, replaced by something sharp and cold. "Five years of your poverty cosplay. Do you know how exhausting it was? That cramped apartment, that rattling radiator, your thrift store clothes." He shuddered theatrically. "I wanted to scrub myself raw every time I touched you."

My knees buckled. I sank into the chair.

"The Vegas wedding?" Clara laughed, high and bright. "Never filed. Legally, you're nothing to him. You never were."

"But I loved you." The words came out broken.

Atticus's expression didn't change. "I know. That's what made it so easy."

Clara pressed herself against him, her lips finding his jaw. He turned into the kiss, his hand tangling in her hair, and I watched them move together with the ease of long practice. Of real intimacy.

I ran.

The foyer, the door—my hands scrabbled at the lock, but it wouldn't turn. Behind me, Atticus sighed.

"Really, Delilah. Where would you go?"

Hands grabbed my arms. Two men in black suits materialized from somewhere, their grips iron. I kicked, screamed, but they lifted me like I weighed nothing.

They dragged me down a hallway lined with abstract art. Through a door. Into a bedroom that looked like a luxury hotel suite, except the windows had bars hidden behind sheer curtains.

They dropped me on the bed. I scrambled backward, but there was nowhere to go.

A woman in a white coat entered, carrying a medical bag. She was Asian, middle-aged, with kind eyes that didn't match what she was doing.

"I'm Dr. Chen," she said softly. "This won't hurt."

"Please." I pressed myself against the headboard. "Please, I'm pregnant—"

"I know." She pulled out a syringe, tapped it. "That's why we need to keep you calm. Stress is bad for Atticus's baby."

Atticus's baby. Not ours. His.

The guards held me down. I felt the needle pierce my arm, felt the cold rush of whatever she'd given me spreading through my veins.

The room blurred. Dr. Chen's face multiplied, then faded.

"Rest now," someone said from very far away. "You're going to be here a while."

Darkness pulled me under, and my last conscious thought was of my mother's locket, still warm against my throat, and how she'd tried to warn me that not everyone who says they love you means it.

I woke to gray light filtering through sheer curtains. My mouth tasted like metal and cotton. The room swam into focus—cream walls, expensive furniture, bars hidden behind silk.

My tote bag sat on a chair across the room. They'd dumped its contents on the dresser. Wallet. Keys. Lipstick. My smartphone was gone.

I pushed myself upright. My head throbbed. Whatever Dr. Chen had given me still clung to my thoughts like cobwebs. I pressed my hand to my stomach, feeling for movement, for anything. Too early. The baby was barely real yet, just cells dividing in the dark.

The tote bag's lining had a small tear near the bottom seam. Hugo had made that tear six years ago, the day before I left the Collins estate. He'd sewn something inside while I packed, his face expressionless.

"Just in case," he'd said. "You don't have to use it. But it's there."

I'd forgotten about it. Five years of playing poor, of pretending the Collins name meant nothing, and I'd forgotten Hugo's insurance policy.

My fingers found the tear. The fabric gave way easily, and I felt the hard edge of plastic. The burner phone was smaller than my palm, ancient by modern standards. The battery indicator showed half charge.

Footsteps in the hallway. I shoved the phone back into the lining and dove for the bed.

The door opened. Clara entered carrying a silver tray, her silk robe replaced by yoga pants and a cashmere sweater. She looked like she'd stepped out of a lifestyle blog. Effortless. Perfect.

"You're awake." She set the tray on the nightstand. Fruit. Yogurt. Orange juice. "You need to eat. For the baby."

I didn't move.

Clara perched on the edge of the bed, too close. Her perfume was familiar—the same brand I used to wear before I left the Upper East Side. Before I became someone else.

"I brought something to show you." She pulled out a tablet, swiped it open. "The nursery."

The screen filled with soft yellows and whites. A crib with hand-carved details. A rocking chair positioned near windows that overlooked Central Park. Shelves lined with books and stuffed animals arranged by color.

"I designed it myself," Clara said. Her voice had gone dreamy. "Atticus wanted gray, but I insisted on something warmer. A baby needs warmth."

She swiped through more photos. A changing table. A mobile with silver stars. Monogrammed blankets.

"This is where I'll raise your child," she continued. "Where I'll read bedtime stories and sing lullabies. Where I'll be the mother you could never be."

My nails dug into my palms.

Clara leaned closer. "I've been watching you for three years, Delilah. Did you know that? Learning your habits. The way you take your coffee. How you tuck your hair behind your left ear when you're nervous." She demonstrated, her fingers mimicking my gesture. "I even bought the same shampoo. Atticus said he could barely tell us apart in the dark."

The room tilted.

"And your parents' graves." Her smile widened. "That was me too. The spray paint, the broken headstones. I knew you'd run to Atticus for comfort. You always did when you were scared."

I lunged. My hands found her throat before conscious thought caught up. We crashed to the floor, the tray scattering fruit across expensive carpet.

The guards were on me in seconds. They peeled my fingers from Clara's neck and threw me back on the bed. Clara stood, smoothing her sweater, her expression unchanged.

"Stress isn't good for the baby," she said, her voice hoarse. Then she left.

I waited until the lock clicked. Until the footsteps faded. Then I retrieved the burner phone.

The screen glowed to life. One button. Red. Hugo had programmed it years ago—a direct line to his encrypted server, a GPS beacon that would scream my location to every Collins security asset within a hundred miles.

I pressed it.

Nothing happened. No confirmation. No sound. Just the screen going dark.

I shoved the phone back into the lining as the door opened again.

The next day, I didn't eat. The tray Clara brought for breakfast sat untouched. Lunch too. By evening, my stomach cramped with hunger, but I kept my hands folded over my belly, protective.

Atticus came that night. He stood in the doorway, his expression clinical.

"You need to eat."

"No."

"The baby needs nutrients."

"Then let me go."

He studied me like I was a problem to solve. Then he left.

Clara arrived an hour later with a silver coffee pot. The smell hit me first—dark roast, the expensive kind. She poured a cup, her movements deliberate.

"Atticus is worried about you." Her voice had an edge. "He keeps checking on you. Asking Dr. Chen about your vitals. Your stress levels."

She set the cup down too hard. Coffee sloshed over the rim.

"He never worried about me like that," she continued. "Even when I was sick. Even when I needed him."

I watched her fingers whiten around the pot's handle.

"You're nothing," she hissed. "Just an incubator. A vessel. But he still looks at you like you matter."

She moved toward me. I scrambled backward, but the headboard stopped me.

Clara's foot caught the edge of the rug. The coffee pot tilted. Scalding liquid arced through the air.

I screamed as it hit my legs. The pain was immediate, blinding. My skin blistered. The smell of burned flesh filled the room.

Clara stood over me, the empty pot dangling from her hand.

"I only need the baby to survive," she said softly. "Not you. Remember that. And if you keep being difficult, I'll have Dr. Chen induce labor early. Twenty-four weeks is viable. Barely. But viable."

She left me there, my legs on fire, my screams echoing off cream-colored walls.

And somewhere in the city, I prayed Hugo had received my signal.

The door opened hours later. I'd stopped screaming by then. The burns on my legs had settled into a constant throb that pulsed with my heartbeat.

Atticus entered carrying a first aid kit, his expression carefully arranged into concern. He knelt beside the bed, and I flinched.

"Let me see." His voice was soft. Gentle. The same voice he'd used when I'd told him about my parents' accident, when I'd cried in his arms and believed he understood grief.

He peeled back the sheet. The blisters had spread, angry and weeping. He opened the kit with practiced efficiency, pulling out gauze and ointment.

"Clara didn't mean it," he said, dabbing antiseptic on the burns. I bit my lip until I tasted copper. "She's just protective. You have to understand—we've worked so hard for this. For our family."

Our family. Not mine. Never mine.

"If you behave," he continued, wrapping gauze around my calf, "we might arrange visits. Once a year, maybe. You could watch him grow up from a distance. Wouldn't that be better than nothing?"

My throat closed. Once a year. Like I was a distant relative. A stranger.

"Your parents would be ashamed." He secured the bandage with tape, his fingers gentle. "Margaret Collins, that pillar of society, watching her daughter throw away everything for a man who never wanted her. Getting herself trapped like this." He looked up, his eyes meeting mine. "You're too unstable to be a mother, Delilah. You always have been. Running away from your responsibilities, hiding from your legacy. What kind of example is that?"

The words burrowed under my skin. My mother's face flashed through my mind—elegant, composed, everything I'd failed to be. She'd built an empire while I'd built nothing but delusions.

But then I remembered Clara's smile as the coffee pot tilted. The calculated cruelty in her eyes.

"You're right," I whispered. "I'm not stable."

Atticus's expression shifted, satisfied. He stood, gathering the medical supplies.

"But neither is she," I added.

He paused at the door. "Get some rest. We have a long night ahead."

They came for me at sunset. Clara swept into the room holding a garment bag, two guards flanking her.

"We're going out," she announced. "Our engagement gala. Half of Manhattan will be there." She unzipped the bag, revealing a dress the color of midnight. "You're coming with us."

I stared at her. "Why?"

"Because we can't leave you here alone. You might do something stupid." She pulled out the dress, shaking it. "You'll be my cousin. Unwell. Fragile. No one will question why you're quiet."

Dr. Chen appeared with her medical bag. I tried to fight, but the guards held me down. Another needle. Another cold rush through my veins.

The world softened at the edges. They dressed me like a doll, pulling the midnight fabric over my head. It was long-sleeved, high-necked, hiding the bruises on my arms. But it clung to my stomach, showcasing the slight swell that had begun to show.

"Perfect," Clara breathed. "You look almost human."

The limousine's interior smelled like leather and Clara's perfume. I slumped against the window, my limbs heavy, my thoughts sluggish. The sedative pulled at me, but I fought it. Focused on the streetlights sliding past, on the pressure of my mother's locket against my collarbone.

Atticus sat across from me, Clara tucked against his side. They thought I was unconscious. I let my head loll, my breathing even.

"The Whitmore girl," Clara said, her voice bright with excitement. "She's perfect. Twenty-two, just inherited her father's shipping empire. Completely overwhelmed."

Atticus's fingers traced patterns on Clara's shoulder. "Vulnerable."

"Desperate for guidance. For someone who understands the pressure." Clara shifted, and I heard the rustle of fabric. "I've already made contact. Coffee next week. She thinks I'm a life coach."

"How long?"

"Six months, maybe. Long enough to gain her trust. Then we introduce her to her 'perfect match.'" Clara laughed, the sound crystalline. "Your brother can play that role. He's been asking for another project."

My stomach turned. Another girl. Another trap.

"Seventeen down," Atticus murmured. "Eighteen if you count Delilah."

"I don't count her. She's still breathing."

The limousine turned, and through my half-closed eyes, I saw lights. A red carpet. Cameras flashing like stars.

"Show time," Atticus said. "Remember—she's your cousin. Exhausted from travel. Keep her close."

Clara's hand found my arm, her grip tight enough to bruise. "Don't worry. I won't let her out of my sight."

The door opened. Sound rushed in—voices, music, the click of heels on pavement. Clara hauled me upright, her arm around my waist, and I let myself be dragged toward the lights.

Seventeen victims. Seventeen lives destroyed.

And somewhere in the city, Hugo's phone was receiving my signal.

I just had to survive long enough for him to find me.