"If he exists," I say, my voice dropping to a whisper that feels like broken glass in my throat, "I want to meet him. Tonight."

Atticus doesn't hesitate. He doesn't argue. He simply reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out his phone.

Two hours later, we are sitting in a corner booth at a restaurant downtown. The lighting is dim and amber-toned, casting long shadows across the white linen tablecloth. The air is thick with the scent of roasted garlic, expensive red wine, and a suffocating, unbearable civility.

Across the table sits Adelaide Medina. Beside her is Miguel Hill.

Miguel is exactly what Atticus promised: solid, pragmatic, entirely real. He rests a casual hand on the back of Adelaide's chair. When the waiter approaches, Miguel orders for her after she hesitates, pours her sparkling water, and behaves with the effortless, synchronized rhythm of a man who has inhabited a woman's life for years.

But I am not looking at Miguel. I am watching Adelaide.

Her posture is rigid, her spine perfectly straight against the leather booth. She wears a dark silk blouse that drapes carefully over the slight swell of her stomach. When the waiter sets down our plates, she removes her wire-rimmed glasses, folds them with mechanical precision, and places them exactly one inch from her water glass.

"It's good to see you, Atticus," Miguel says, his voice a low, pleasant rumble. He cuts into his steak with steady hands. "Though the invitation was a bit sudden."

"I appreciate you making the time," Atticus replies. His knee brushes mine under the table; I flinch away, pulling my legs tight against the seat. Atticus's jaw tightens, a tiny muscle feathering just beneath the skin near his ear.

Adelaide doesn't look at Atticus. She keeps her gaze fixed on the table, tracing the condensation on her glass with one manicured fingernail.

*Guilt,* my mind whispers. *She can't even look him in the eye.*

"So," I say, the syllable slicing sharply through the polite hum of the dining room. "When is the baby due, Adelaide?"

Her finger stops its tracing. A microsecond of absolute stillness. She glances up, her eyes darting toward Atticus—just a flicker, just a fraction of a second—before answering. "October."

"How wonderful." I smile. The expression feels like a grimace, stretching the skin tight over my cheekbones. "Miguel must be thrilled."

"We both are," Adelaide says. Her voice is entirely flat, stripped of the warm, breathless joy of an expectant mother. It is the voice of a scientist reporting a data point. She reaches for her water, and I watch the way her fingers tremble, just slightly, before she grips the heavy glass.

She's uncomfortable. She's trapped. Miguel is a prop, a convenient shield Atticus dragged out to blind me. The way Adelaide avoids Atticus's eyes isn't the indifference of an ex-lover—it's the desperate, vibrating tension of two people trying not to touch a live wire in public.

The dinner ends with excruciating politeness. The check is paid. Hands are shaken.

Now, we are in the car. The heavy doors of Atticus's sedan seal us inside a leather-lined vacuum. The city streets blur past, the rhythmic flash of streetlamps washing his profile in harsh yellow light before plunging it back into shadow.

He is waiting for me to speak. To concede. To tell him the elaborate performance was enough.

My phone vibrates against my thigh.

I slip it from my pocket, angling the screen toward the window to shield it from his peripheral vision.

*Londyn.*

*Did you go?*

I type a single letter with a shaking thumb: *Y.*

The gray response bubbles appear, vanish, then reappear.

*Mer, listen to me. It's a setup. Think about it. He has the money and the connections to stage whatever he needs you to see. Do you really think he'd just hand you the truth over dinner? He's making you doubt your own eyes.*

My breath hitches, a sharp, shallow intake of air. I read the words again. *Making you doubt your own eyes.*

I look at the dark blur of the city. I think of the rust-brown stain on the doll. The yellow sweater my mother's failing hands knitted. Adelaide's clinical, guilty silence.

I press the power button, plunging the screen into darkness, and flip the phone face-down on my lap.

The leather of the steering wheel groans as Atticus shifts his grip.

"Meredith," he says softly. The word is thick with a heavy, desperate hope. "Now that you've seen them... can we please talk about this?"

I turn my head slowly. The streetlights catch the hollows of his eyes, the tense, waiting line of his mouth. He looks exhausted. He looks like a man who thinks he has won.

"No," I say. The word drops between us, cold and absolute.

Atticus blinks. The knuckles of his right hand whiten against the wheel. "Meredith, Miguel is the father. You saw them together. You saw—"

"I saw exactly what you wanted me to see, Atticus."

"It wasn't a performance!" The sudden volume of his voice fills the cabin, startling in its rawness. He catches himself, swallowing hard, his chest rising and falling beneath his tailored coat. "I am trying to save us."

I look away, fixing my eyes firmly on the red taillights of the car ahead. The panic that had been drowning me all day is gone, replaced by a freezing, impenetrable clarity.

"Keep your eyes on the road," I tell him, my voice devoid of any tremor. "I have nothing left to say to you."

The silence that follows isn't empty. It is a locked door, and I am finally on the other side of it.

We don't speak for three days.

Not in the morning when he makes coffee and leaves mine on the counter, untouched until it goes cold. Not in the evening when I hear his key in the lock and retreat to the bedroom before he can cross the threshold. Not in the terrible, suffocating hours between when the apartment becomes a mausoleum we both haunt separately.

On the fourth night, I wake at 2:17 a.m. to find his side of the bed still empty.

I lie there in the dark, listening. No sound from the bathroom. No glow of light beneath the bedroom door. Just the faint, almost imperceptible creak of floorboards from the direction of his study.

I slip out of bed, my bare feet silent on the hardwood, and move toward the thin line of light beneath his door.

He is standing at the window. Hands clasped behind his back, shoulders rigid, staring out at the city like a man watching something burn in the distance. He doesn't turn when I push the door open. Doesn't acknowledge me at all.

The room smells like old paper and sleeplessness.

"You should be asleep," he says finally, his voice so low it barely disturbs the air.

"So should you."

He exhales. A long, slow release that sounds like surrender. "I can't."

I step inside. The locked drawer beneath his desk catches my eye—still closed, still guarding whatever he's decided I'm not allowed to know. My fingers curl into fists at my sides.

"How long are we going to do this, Atticus?"

"Do what?" He still hasn't turned around.

"Live like strangers. Pretend we're not destroying each other."

Now he moves. Slowly, like the motion costs him something. When he faces me, the shadows under his eyes are deep enough to drown in.

"I don't know how to fix this," he says, and the rawness in his voice makes my chest tighten despite everything. "I keep trying to show you the truth, and you keep—" He stops. Shakes his head. "Who's been texting you, Meredith?"

The question lands like a slap.

"What?"

"Someone is feeding you information. Telling you where to go. What to think. Who is it?"

My pulse spikes. I take a step back, my spine hitting the doorframe. "That's none of your business."

"It is absolutely my business when they're tearing us apart." His voice sharpens, desperation bleeding through the careful control. "Whoever they are, they're lying to you. They're dangerous."

"No." The word comes out harder than I intended. "You don't get to do this. You don't get to isolate me from the one person who's actually—"

"Who, Meredith?" He takes a step toward me, and there's something wild in his eyes now, something I've never seen before. "Give me a name. Let me prove to you that they're not who you think they are."

I press my left wrist against the doorframe, grounding myself in the sharp pressure. "You want to control everything. Who I talk to. What I believe. You can't stand that someone else might actually care about me."

"That's not—" He stops. Closes his eyes. When he opens them again, the wildness is gone, replaced by something worse. Something that looks like grief. "I'm trying to protect you."

"From what? The truth?"

"From whoever is using you to destroy us."

The silence that follows is suffocating.

I turn to leave.

"Meredith, wait." His voice cracks. "Please."

I stop. Don't turn around. My hand grips the doorframe hard enough that my knuckles ache.

"There's something I need to tell you," he says quietly. "Something I should have told you a long time ago."

My heart hammers against my ribs. I force myself to turn, to look at him.

He's standing beside his desk now, one hand resting on the surface above the locked drawer. His fingers tremble.

"The drawer," he says. "The one you've been staring at. It's not work files."

I wait. My breath shallow.

"It's letters." He swallows hard, his throat working visibly. "Letters I've been writing for two years. To someone who never lived."

The floor tilts beneath me.

"What?"

"I kept it from you because I thought—" His voice breaks. He presses his palm flat against the desk, steadying himself. "I thought if you knew what we lost, it would break you. Your mind was so fragile after it happened, and I made a choice. I chose to carry it alone."

My vision blurs at the edges. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the reason Adelaide's lab is the only place that can prove what I'm trying to tell you." His eyes meet mine, and they're haunted. Devastated. "I'm talking about the truth you can't remember because I let them take it from you."

I can't breathe. Can't think. The room is spinning, and all I can see is the locked drawer and the man standing over it like a grave.

"Tomorrow," he says, his voice barely above a whisper. "I'm taking you to the lab. And you're going to see everything."

I turn and walk out before my legs give out.

In the bedroom, I collapse onto the bed and pull my phone from beneath the pillow. My hands shake as I open the messages.

*Londyn,* I type. *He's trying to make me think I'm losing my mind.*

The reply comes within seconds.

*Then don't go with him tomorrow. Whatever he's planning, it's a trap. You need to leave. Now. Before he makes it impossible.*

I stare at the screen until the words blur.

Somewhere in the apartment, a door closes softly.

I lie back against the pillows, my phone clutched against my chest, and wait for morning.