Lyra

"They're hunting Cassian." The words barely leave my lips before my heartbeat drowns out everything else. For one suspended moment, I can't breathe. I can't think. All I can do is stare.

The large display mounted against the wall is divided neatly into two live feeds. On the left, Cassian sits cross-legged on the nursery floor, completely engrossed in the little tower he's building from brightly colored wooden blocks.

A sudden, fierce ache twists in my chest. It is an irrational, maternal urge so sharp it leaves me breathless-a desperate desire to reach through the monitor, scoop him up into my arms, and shield his eyes from the darkness heading his way.

He is too young to understand that his world has shifted. Unbothered. Unafraid.

My gaze drifts to the right side of the display. The four masked men continue through the corridor with terrifying precision. Each measured step brings them closer to the nursery. Closer to Cassian.

"Dante. . ." My voice comes out thinner than I intend.

He doesn't answer. He touches the sleek, flesh-colored earpiece tucked behind his right ear, his eyes locked on the moving targets.

"Bravo, flank from the service elevator," Dante murmurs, his voice a low, lethal whisper. "Echo, choke point at the threshold. You have six seconds." A pause. "No noise."

Another pause. "No breach."

On the screen, the masked men stop outside the final security door. One swipes a key card.

The lock clicks. My throat tightens painfully.

On the left side of the screen, Cassian giggles as another tower of wooden blocks collapses into a colorful heap. On the right, the door swings open.

"Do something," I plead, the whisper escaping before I can stop it.

Dante doesn't look at me, but his fingers curl tightly against the edge of the mahogany desk.

The four men step into the final corridor. The nursery door is right there, a pristine white barrier at the end of the hall. One of the masked men lifts his hand toward the handle.

"Now," Dante whispers into his earpiece.

Six of Dante's security guards materialize from the shadows of the intersecting hallway, weapons already drawn.

The corridor erupts.

The violence is fast, clinical, and devastating. A wrist is shattered. A knife flashes, catching one guard across the forearm. He doesn't even slow. He drives his weight forward, pinning the attacker against the wall.

Within three breathless seconds, three of the intruders are slammed facedown onto the polished floor, their weapons kicked away.

The leader of the cell struggles violently, his mask catching on the corner of a security camera bracket during the scuffle. The fabric tears, ripping completely off his face.

My heart stops.

The screen displays his face in sharp, high-definition focus.

Hold up! That's Gregory.

My breath leaves me in a ragged gasp.

Gregory-the man who had stood guard outside my father's private study for a decade. The man who had politely held doors open for me, who had escorted me to my college graduation, who had smiled and asked about my day.

Those men had spent years protecting my family. Tonight, they were sent to slaughter a baby. My stomach violently turns, a wave of profound, sickening guilt washing over me.

On the left side of the display, Cassian doesn't even look toward the door. He's too busy trying to balance a blue block on top of his little tower, blissfully safe.

Slowly, I turn to Dante. He is standing exactly where he was, but the mask of the cold, unfeeling monster has slipped.

His shoulders drop. A shaky, uneven breath escapes his lips, his chest rising and falling as if he had just emerged from deep water.

His hand remains flat on the desk, trembling just enough for me to see it, before he slowly tightens it into a fist to hide the tremor.

The terrifying, obsessive warlord is gone, replaced for a single, fleeting second by a father who had just stared into the abyss of losing his child-and barely won.

A thousand questions crash through my mind, colliding with one another until only one survives.

I stare at him, my voice barely more than a whisper. "Why? Why would you protect him like that?"

For a long moment, Dante says nothing. His green eyes drift back to the display, softening as they watch Cassian happily rebuild the little tower that keeps refusing to stand.

Then he finally looks at me.

"Because. . . " There's a quiet beat, the word heavy between us. "He's ours."

Lyra

The words echo through the office long after Dante says them.

Because he's ours.

For a heartbeat, I simply stare at him. Then I laugh. It's a brittle sound. Hollow. The kind that doesn't belong to amusement but disbelief.

My gaze drifts back to the split screen mounted on the wall.

On one side, the little boy—Cassian—sits cross-legged on the nursery floor, completely absorbed in stacking brightly colored wooden blocks. On the other side is the empty corridor where a brutal fight just ensued.

My pulse hammers. The two images shouldn't exist together. One is innocence. The other is death.

Slowly, I drag my eyes back to Dante.

"No." The word leaves me before I can stop it, but my voice grows steadier, stronger. "I don't believe you."

Dante doesn't deny it. He simply watches me with the same unsettling patience that's beginning to terrify me.

"My father took me to the hospital himself," I press, my heart beating hard against my ribs. "The doctors said my baby didn't survive. You weren't there, Dante. He was stillborn. I buried him. I mourned him."

The words scrape my throat raw, bouncing off the marble walls.

"For an entire year, I believed my son was dead."

Dante doesn't interrupt. He doesn't argue. He simply watches me, reading every emotion passing through my face, before he finally speaks.

"Did you see his body?"

His voice is different. Quieter. Almost careful.

The question catches me completely off guard. For the first time, his voice isn't cold. It is careful, as though he already fears what my answer might be.

"What?" I whisper.

"Did you see his body?"

I open my mouth to say yes. Of course I did. Except. . . the memory refuses to come. Instead, fragmented sensory details rise from somewhere deep inside me: bright operating lights, the sharp scent of antiseptic, pain so overwhelming it stole my breath, and voices telling me to push.

Then, nothing but darkness.

I remember waking up in a haze of tears. I remember my father sitting beside the hospital bed, his face heavy with sorrow, and the doctor gently delivering the news. But as I search the empty spaces of that room, I realize with a sickening jolt that I don't actually remember holding him. I don't remember seeing him at all.

A cold sensation crawls up my spine. The certainty I'd clung to for a year begins to fracture, tiny hairline cracks spreading through my own history.

"I. . . " My voice falters. "I don't. . . "

I look at Dante. He hasn't moved, nor has he seized on my hesitation. He simply waits, as though he knew this exact realization would come.

My pulse pounds painfully against my ribs. "How? How do you know?"

"I investigated," he says quietly.

"Investigated what?" I demand. "My pregnancy? My delivery? My father's life? What exactly did you investigate?"

Dante studies me, letting the questions hang in the air. He steps around the desk with slow, measured movements, sitting down to reach for his crystal tumbler.

He takes a slow, quiet sip, then places the glass back onto the polished wood with a soft clink.

He tilts his head ever so slightly.

"How did your father treat you when you came home?"

Father.

The word hangs between us like a stone dropped into still water, sending ripples through memories I haven't touched in over a year.

I open my mouth to defend him, but my mind has already begun to drift. I remember waking up in my bedroom after leaving the hospital, my body aching in places I hadn't known could hurt. I remember staring at the ceiling for hours, waiting for Arthur to come.

He never did.

At the time, I'd told myself he was grieving. But then other memories push to the surface. A tray of untouched food left outside my door. The housekeeper quietly telling me Father didn't want me leaving my room.

The weeks of isolation, followed by my aunt suddenly packing my suitcase.

I remember my father standing at the front door, his hands tucked into his pockets. He didn't hug me. He didn't tell me he would miss me. He simply told me it would be better if I stayed with my cousins in the countryside for a few months.

At the time, I'd thought he was protecting me from whispers. Now, I wonder if he was protecting himself.

When I finally returned home, the man who raised me had changed. The warmth in his smile was gone, replaced by a quiet, lingering disappointment.

I remember a birthday dinner six months later when he finally laughed at something I said, and the overwhelming wave of relief that had washed over me.

Earned.

The word lodges itself in my chest.

Why had it felt as though I needed to earn my own father's love?

Because he'd taken it away. Not out of grief, but as a silent, calculated penalty. Because I'd become pregnant. Because I'd carried a child he never wanted to acknowledge.

My knees threaten to buckle beneath me.

I'd spent an entire year blaming fate. It had never occurred to me that the greatest tragedy of my life might have been orchestrated by the man I'd trusted most.

A strangled gasp escapes my lips. "Oh. . ."

The pieces begin to fit together with horrifying precision. The distance, the isolation, sending me away—every cruel decision I'd spent a year excusing had been deliberate.

My eyes lift to Dante's.

For the first time, I don't see a monster trying to manipulate me. I see a man who has been waiting patiently for me to uncover the truth with my own eyes.

"If he could do that to me. . ." I whisper, the blood draining from my face.

The rest of the thought refuses to leave my mouth. It doesn't need to.

It was Father. It had always been Father.

Dante sees the exact moment recognition floods my eyes. He says nothing. He doesn't nod, doesn't offer comfort, and doesn't claim victory.

Instead, he reaches for the drawer built into the side of his desk. Without taking his eyes off me, he pulls it open and reaches inside.

For a brief second, his hand disappears from view. When it emerges again, he's holding a black handgun.

He places it carefully on the polished wood. Then, keeping his gaze locked on mine, he slowly pushes it across the desk until it comes to a stop directly in front of me.