Elena Rivers
She didn't know how she made it home.
The heels, the lights, the chaos of the announcement—it all dissolved into a numb haze by the time she locked the door behind her. The silence of her apartment was deafening now, pressing against her chest like a question she couldn't answer.
He had done it.
Damien Vale had shattered every illusion she built. Again.
The soft chime of a message blinked on her phone.
Not Christopher. Not a friend.
Him.
> "You looked beautiful today. I didn't want them to forget the mother of my child."
She threw the phone across the room.
Was this his endgame? To make her hate herself so much that she'd crawl back to him out of exhaustion? Or worse—accept his love because she had nothing left?
Her fingers curled around her abdomen.
The child was innocent. Pure. But Damien was already laying claim to it like a possession.
She couldn't let him.
She wouldn't.
A knock echoed at the door.
She froze.
When she opened it, it wasn't Damien. Not yet.
It was her lawyer. The one she contacted weeks ago in secret.
"I'm ready," she said, before he could ask anything.
"Custody, Elena?" he asked softly.
"No," she said. "A restraining order."
He nodded grimly.
This was it.
The final stretch.
The threshold.
One step left—into a storm she'd either survive, or surrender to.
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