The world was no longer light and sound, it was weight.

Valentina felt the viscous, poisoned water of the bathtub pressing against her eardrums, a heavy, silent shroud. She was suspended in a terrifying limbo where her mind screamed for air, but her lungs were filled with lead.

Through the distorted shimmer of the water, she saw them, Kennedy and Lilith, their figures blurred like smudged ink.

They were laughing. The man who had just shared her bed was watching her life extinguish with the casual boredom of someone watching a candle flicker out.

My baby, her soul wailed. Not like this.

Then came the hands. Rough, callous, and devoid of the love Kennedy had mimicked an hour ago. She felt herself being hauled out, her limp body hitting the cold marble floor with a sickening, wet thud.

She wanted to gasp, to vomit the floral-scented poison from her throat, but the paralytic held her tongue captive. She was a passenger in a corpse.

"Hurry up," Kennedy's voice drifted from miles away, cold and sharp. "The ground is soft from the rain. Get her to the gardener's shed. Martha will handle the cleanup here."

She felt the coarse friction of a heavy burlap garden sack being pulled over her head. The fabric smelled of bone meal, dried blood, and old earth. It scratched her cheeks, catching on her eyelashes.

Then, the world tilted. She was being dragged. Her spine barked in pain as it hit the edges of the stairs, each step a rhythmic jolting of her brain against her skull.

I'm here. I'm still here, she tried to cry out, but only a silent, pathetic bubble of spit escaped her lips inside the dark sack she was put into.

The dragging stopped. The air grew colder, smelling of damp mulch and the coming storm.

"Is it done?"

That was Martha. The old maid's voice was trembling, brittle as dry leaves.

"Aye," a man grunted, the gardener. "The boss said to put her under the hydrangeas. Deep. He doesn't want the dogs catching a scent."

Valentina felt herself being hoisted up. For a moment, she was weightless, then, impact.

She hit the bottom of a shallow trench. The earth was freezing, sucking the remaining heat from her skin. She heard the rhythmic thud-shink of a shovel biting into the dirt.

A heavy spray of soil landed on her legs. Then her stomach. The baby. The weight of the earth began to compress her chest, forcing out the last microscopic pocket of oxygen.

She was being buried alive in her own garden, a few yards away from the room where she had once dreamed of a nursery.

"Wait!" Martha's voice shrilled. "Garrick, the master is calling for you. He's at the back porch. He looks... impatient."

The shoveling stopped. "Dammit," the gardener muttered. "Stay here. Don't let anyone near the hole. I'll be back to finish the job."

The moment his heavy footsteps faded, the dirt over Valentina's face was frantically brushed away. The burlap was ripped back. Martha's face, etched with a mask of pure horror, hovered above her.

"Oh, my sweet girl," the old woman whispered, her tears falling like hot needles onto Valentina's cold skin. She pressed her fingers to Valentina's neck.

A flutter. A tiny, desperate spark of life.

"You're alive," Martha breathed, her eyes darting toward the house. "God forgive me, but I can't let him kill a child too."

Martha didn't have time for a rescue. She didn't have a car or a key. She grabbed a pile of heavy rocks and old logs from the garden edge, shoving them into the burlap sack to mimic the weight of a body.

She rolled the dummy into the grave and kicked a thin layer of dirt over it.

Then, she turned to Valentina.

With a strength born of pure adrenaline, Martha hauled Valentina's limp form onto a rusted wheelbarrow.

She covered her with a filthy, oil-stained tarp and a pile of discarded weeds.

The journey was a nightmare of agonizing slowness. Squeak. Squeak. Squeak. The wheel of the barrow groaned under the weight.

"Martha!"

The maid froze. Valentina felt her heart stop. Through a small tear in the tarp, she saw the silhouette of Kennedy standing on the veranda, a glass of scotch in his hand.

"Where are you going with that trash?" he called out, his voice lazily cruel.

"The...the alley bin, sir," Martha stammered, her voice shaking. "The gardener left a mess. I'm clearing it before the rain ruins the path."

Kennedy looked at the pile of weeds for a heartbeat that lasted an eternity. Then, he shrugged. "Fine. Make it quick. I want this house purged of her memory by morning."

Martha didn't wait. She pushed the barrow toward the rusted servant's gate at the far end of the estate. Every pebble they hit sent a spike of agony through Valentina's bruised neck.

Finally, they reached the narrow, rain-slicked alleyway behind the mansion. Martha tipped the barrow.

Valentina tumbled out, landing in a pile of damp cardboard and trash. The tarp was thrown over her like a shroud.

"Run, Valentina," Martha sobbed, kneeling for one last second to tuck a small, tattered shawl around her. "If you stay, he will finish it. If you go to the police, he will buy them. You have to disappear. You have to be a ghost now."

The gate clicked shut. The heavy iron bolt slid into place.

The silence of the alley was deafening, broken only by the distant rumble of thunder. Valentina lay there, her fingers twitching in the mud.

The paralytic was finally wearing off, replaced by a searing, white-hot pain in her throat and a terrifying emptiness in her heart.

She was twenty-eight years old. She was penniless. She was a walking corpse.

And as a sharp, protective cramp bloomed in her abdomen, she realized the most terrifying truth of all: she was no longer one person.

She was two. And she had no idea how to keep either of them alive.

But in the dead of that night, she just did one thing, the only thing she could do at that moment.

Run!

The rain began as a cold, mocking drizzle, turning the grime of the alley into a slick black sludge.

Valentina.... no, she had to stop thinking of herself as the woman who loved Kennedy forced her fingers to dig into the wet pavement. Her muscles screamed, the paralytic leaving behind a lingering, leaden tremor that made every movement feel like wading through thick tar.

She dragged herself upright, leaning against a graffiti-stained brick wall. Every breath felt like swallowing shards of glass; her throat was a ring of fire where Kennedy's thumbs had tried to extinguish her soul.

She began to walk. Each step was a battle against gravity. She was a phantom in a torn silk gown, a ruined bride of the night, trailing the faint, ironic scent of expensive lilies and cemetery dirt.

As she stumbled toward the mouth of the alley, the neon glare of the city hit her like a physical blow. She passed a high-end boutique, its glass polished to a mirror finish. Valentina stopped. She didn't mean to look, but the creature in the reflection demanded her attention.

A hollow-cheeked woman stared back. Her hair was a matted bird's nest of mud and dried rose petals. Her neck was branded with a grotesque, blackened necklace of bruises, the fingerprints of a man who had promised her forever. She looked like something that had crawled out of a nightmare, not the socialite who had graced the covers of local galas.

I died in that tub, she thought, a hysterical sob bubbling in her chest. This is just the ghost walking home.

She reached a public park, the wrought-iron benches glistening like bone in the moonlight. She needed a phone.

A priest. A stranger with a shred of mercy. But as she approached a passerby, a man in a sharp suit, he recoiled, his lip curling in disgust.

"Get away from me, you crackhead," he spat, sidestepping her as if her misery were contagious.

The rejection stung more than the cold. She was invisible to the world she once belonged to. She was trash now, just as Kennedy had said.

Suddenly, a white-hot spike of pain detonated in her lower abdomen.

Valentina gasped, her knees buckling. She collapsed behind a large oak tree, the rough bark scraping her bare shoulder. She clutched her stomach, her breath coming in panicked, shallow hitches.

"No," she whimpered, her voice a shredded rasp. "Not you. Please stay. Don't leave me alone."

The cramp deepened, a dull, heavy ache that felt like an ending. She was terrified to look down, terrified to see red staining the muddy hem of her dress. If she lost the baby, she had nothing left to fight for. The child was the only thing Kennedy hadn't managed to steal yet.

She curled into a ball on the cold roots of the tree, whispering a frantic, broken lullaby to the life inside her, her tears carving clean streaks through the filth on her face.

Fight, little one. If I'm still breathing, you have to be too.

After ten minutes of agonizing stillness, the pain receded into a dull throb. A miracle. A temporary reprieve.

She forced herself back up, her vision swimming with exhaustion, her mind a fog of trauma and hunger.

The wind picked up, howling through the concrete canyons of the city. Something white and shimmering danced across the pavement a few yards away.

Her heart leaped. The silk clutch.

The one Kennedy wanted to bury alongside her.

Martha had packed it with the dirt and slyly given it to her before urging her to escape.

It was the bag she had carried during their romantic dinner. Inside was her wedding ring, a five-carat lie, and her ID.

It was the only proof that she existed, the only currency she had left to buy a way out of this city. It was her only hope to find a doctor, a place to hide, a future.

The bag tumbled, caught in a playful, cruel gust. It skittered toward the edge of the curb, toward the busy intersection of 5th and Main.

"Wait," she croaked, her legs moving with a sudden, desperate burst of adrenaline.

She ignored the ache in her womb. She ignored the way her lungs burned. That bag was her shield, her weapon, her identity. She chased it, her bare feet slapping against the cold asphalt, her fingers outstretched like a drowning woman reaching for a lifeline.

The bag flew into the center of the crosswalk.

Valentina lunged. Her fingers brushed the silk, cold, wet, and real. She snatched it to her chest, a sob of triumph breaking from her lips as she curled her body around the small treasure.

Then, the world turned white.

A roar of an engine, like a beast awakened, filled her ears. The screech of high-performance tires tore through the night air, a sound of tearing metal and screaming rubber. Two blinding, celestial orbs of light eclipsed the city, heading straight for her.

She didn't have the strength to jump. She didn't have the time to scream.

Valentina squeezed the bag to her heart, shut her eyes tight, and felt the hot, metallic breath of the radiator against her skin.

She braced for the impact, for the bones to shatter, for the final darkness to take her back to the water where Kennedy had left her.

I'm sorry, little one, she whispered in the silence of her soul. At least we'll be together.

But instead of the cold embrace of death, two small, frantic forces slammed into her side.

"Mommy!"

The impact knocked her off her feet, sending her rolling across the asphalt just as the black beast of a car hissed to a halt inches from where she had been.

Valentina gasped for air, her head spinning, only to find herself pinned to the ground by four small, trembling arms and the scent of vanilla and expensive soap.

"Mommy, you're finally back!"

"Mommy, you're finally back!"

The words were a physical blow, more shocking than the near-impact of the car. Valentina lay on the wet asphalt, the air forced from her lungs by the sheer weight of the two children clinging to her. Their warmth was a stark, jarring contrast to the icy rain and the stench of the gutter.

Ivy was sobbing into the crook of Valentina's neck, her small, gloved hands clutching the ruined fabric of Valentina's dress as if she were trying to sew her back into their lives with her fingernails. Ivan was anchored to her waist, his body shaking with a relief so profound it felt like a sob.

"No... no, little ones," Valentina wheezed, her voice a shredded, terrifying rasp. She tried to peel their small fingers away, her hands trembling with a mix of terror and an inexplicable, hollow ache. "You're mistaken... I'm not... I'm dirty... please, you'll get sick..."

"Don't leave again!" Ivy wailed, her voice rising in a frantic crescendo. "We waited every night at the window! Papa said you were just playing hide-and-seek, but it's been so long! Don't go back to the water, Mommy!"

Valentina's heart stopped. The water. How could this child know about the water? She looked at them through a haze of tears and exhaustion. They had her eyes, the same deep, liquid amber and her unruly waves though the girl's hair was a fiery red color.

The resemblance was so haunting, so impossible, that for a split second, Valentina wondered if the paralytic had finally reached her brain, weaving a beautiful, cruel hallucination to comfort her as she died.

She struggled to find her footing, her bare feet slipping in the oily sludge of the intersection. Panic, sharp and jagged, pierced through her fatigue. She had to run. If Kennedy's men found her here, these children would be caught in the crossfire of his malice.

"I have to go... please..." she whispered, trying to stand.

But as she gained her footing, the world went silent. The city's hum, the rain's hiss, it all vanished, sucked away by a heavy, predatory gravity.

A shadow fell over them, long and ominous.

Valentina looked up, her breath hitching. A man stood framed by the blinding white light of the car's headlamps. He was a titan in dark, expensive wool, his presence so overwhelming it seemed to command the very air to stay still.

His face was a masterpiece of cold, arrogant stone, a jawline that could cut through bone and eyes of frozen, piercing steel that held no room for mercy.

He didn't look at her like a victim. He looked at her like a thief caught with his most prized possession.

"I...I don't know who you are," Valentina whispered, her hand instinctively shielding the small bump of her stomach. She felt the children tighten their hold on her, their "Mommy" now a whimpered plea. "Please, let me go. I'm just... I'm no one."

She turned to bolt into the safety of the shadows, but she was too slow. Her body was a wreck, and he was a predator in his prime.

A hand, large and like a shackle of cold iron, clamped around her wrist. He yanked her back toward him with a violent, effortless grace. The heat from his palm burned through her skin, a terrifying contrast to the freezing rain.

Valentina was spun around, her chest colliding with the wall of his charcoal overcoat.

He leaned down, his face inches from hers, his scent of sandalwood, leather, and expensive tobacco enveloping her like a shroud.

"You've ran enough, and I have given you enough grace to play around," he growled, his voice a low, melodic vibration that felt like a death sentence.

His eyes searched her bruised, mud-stained face with a dark, twisted satisfaction. "Enough is enough, Misha. It's time to get home."

"I'm not... I'm not her!" she shrieked, her voice cracking into a pathetic whimper.

He didn't even blink. He looked over her head at the two men who had emerged from the front of the car, massive, silent guards who moved with the precision of machines.

"Put her in," he commanded, his voice cold and flat.

"No! No, stop!" Valentina thrashed, her weak muscles flailing against the iron grip of the guards as they stepped forward.

They grabbed her by the arms, lifting her off her feet as if she weighed nothing. Her silk bag, her only proof of life, was nearly knocked from her hand as she was hauled toward the yawning black interior of the car.

"Let me go! You don't understand! I'm not Misha!"

Her screams were swallowed by the night. One guard shoved her into the plush, leather-scented darkness of the backseat, while the other held the children back.

Valentina lunged for the opposite door, her fingers clawing at the handle, but a heavy thud signaled the child-locks engaging.

She was trapped.

As the man, the stranger, stepped into the car beside her, the door slammed shut, sealing her in a cage of luxury. The car roared to life, surging forward with a predatory growl, leaving the rain and the alley behind as Valentina was driven headfirst into a life that was not her own.