“Elena—listen to me very carefully.”
The match burned lower between my fingers.
Rain hissed against the stone steps of the Vance mansion.
Beneath me, the welcome mat was dark with gasoline.
Behind the oak doors, warm light glowed through beveled glass as though nothing terrible had happened there.
“Is Brooke dead?” I asked again.
“No.”
One word.
My knees nearly gave way.
Dr.
Mitchell continued before I could speak.
“Her vitals have stabilized.
And Elena…
she opened her eyes.”
I stared at the flame.
“What?”
“Only briefly.
She’s extremely weak, but she responded to us.
She is asking for you.”
For several seconds, I could hear nothing except the rain.
Then the match touched my fingertips.
I let it fall—not onto the mat, but into a puddle beyond the porch steps.
The flame vanished with a faint hiss.
I stood there shaking.
Ten seconds earlier I had been ready to turn myself into exactly what Trevor and Victoria needed me to become: another criminal, another distraction, another story their lawyers could point to while Brooke’s broken body became an afterthought.
I looked at the mansion one final time.
“Not like this,” I whispered.
Then I picked up the gasoline can, carried it back to my truck, and drove away.
By the time I reached St.
Jude’s, my hands were still trembling.
Dr.
Mitchell met me outside the ICU.
“She’s conscious?”
“Intermittently,” he said.
“Don’t misunderstand me.
Brooke remains critically injured.
We are still extremely worried about swelling in her brain, and we’ve had serious complications from the abdominal trauma.”
I swallowed.
“The baby?”
His expression changed.
He didn’t need to answer immediately.
I already knew.
“We couldn’t save the pregnancy,” he said softly.
The hallway seemed to tilt beneath me.
I put one hand against the wall.
My grandchild had existed for five months in all the small ways that mattered.
Brooke had sent me ultrasound pictures.
She had called me laughing the first time she felt movement.
She had already chosen a drawer for tiny clothes she kept buying and hiding because Victoria considered them “cheap.”
Now there would be no child to bring home.
I closed my eyes.
“Does Brooke know?”
“Not yet.
She’s barely able to stay awake.
Right now, keeping her stable is our priority.”
When I entered her room, Brooke looked smaller than she had three hours earlier.
