Chapter 3

Haven POV

Dr. Evans, the physician at the private clinic, was a small woman with eyes like flint and hands that wasted no movement.

She stitched the laceration on my thigh with efficient, unsentimental tugs before checking my ribs for fractures.

Then, she ran the blood work.

I sat on the edge of the exam table, the paper crinkling beneath me, staring blankly at a colorful poster about nutrition. I felt absolutely nothing. Just a hollow, ringing silence.

Dr. Evans returned a few minutes later, a clipboard tucked against her chest.

"Mrs. Jones," she said, her tone professional but guarded. "You are aware that you are pregnant?"

The air left the room. The world didn't just tilt; it stopped.

I gripped the edge of the table, my knuckles turning white.

"What?"

"Six weeks," she stated, flipping a page. "It is a miracle the fall didn't cause a detachment. But the heartbeat is strong."

Trembling, I pressed a hand to my stomach.

We had tried for five years.

Years of failed IVF cycles. Endless rounds of hormone injections that bruised my skin and battered my soul.

Nothing had worked.

And now, when my marriage was a rotting corpse festering in the sun, life had finally taken root.

This was the heir.

This was the future of the Apex Crew.

This changed everything.

I thanked the doctor, my voice distant to my own ears, and left.

I returned to the penthouse.

The apartment was a mausoleum of white marble and glass-cold, modern, and utterly empty.

Connor came home two hours later.

As soon as he walked in, the scent hit me. He smelled like her perfume.

Vanilla and deceit.

He froze when he saw me sitting on the white leather sofa, waiting.

"Haven," he breathed, visible relief washing over his features. "The hospital said you checked out against medical advice. I was worried sick."

"Sit down, Connor."

He perched on the coffee table in front of me, reaching out to take my hands. His palms were damp.

I didn't let him touch me.

"I have two things to tell you," I said, my voice razor-flat.

He nodded quickly, looking like a puppy who knew he had soiled the rug but hoped for a treat anyway.

"First, I am pregnant."

His eyes went wide.

His mouth fell open, a silent gasp of shock.

"You... you're sure?"

"Dr. Evans confirmed it."

A smile broke across his face, genuine and blindingly bright. It was the smile of the man I used to love.

"An heir," he whispered, reverence in his tone. "We finally did it. Haven, this fixes everything. This is a new start for us."

"Second," I said, slicing through his joy like a guillotine. "Gemma leaves."

His smile faltered, then vanished.

"What?"

"She leaves the city," I commanded. "Tonight. You cut all ties. You never speak to her again."

"Haven, be reasonable," he said, standing up and beginning to pace the room. "She has nowhere to go. She is traumatized. I can't just throw her out on the street like garbage."

"She is a mole, Connor."

He stopped pacing and looked at me as if I were the one who had lost my mind.

"She is a kid," he scoffed, shaking his head. "She barely knows how to use a phone. You are being paranoid. You are jealous."

"I am your wife," I said, my voice rising, vibrating with the force of my ultimatum. "I am the mother of your child. Choose. Right now. Her, or us."

The silence stretched, taut as a wire.

Then, his phone buzzed in his pocket.

He pulled it out and looked at the screen.

It was her.

I could see the name lighting up the dim room, a beacon of my destruction.

Connor looked at me, then down at the phone. Conflict warred in his eyes.

"I have to take this," he said, his voice dropping. "It might be an emergency regarding the ambush."

He answered the phone.

"I am coming," he said into the receiver.

He hung up and looked at me with apologetic, cowardly eyes.

"I have to go," he said, backing toward the door. "Just for an hour. We will talk when I get back."

He grabbed his keys.

He walked out the door.

He chose.

I sat there for a moment, the silence of the penthouse settling around me like a shroud. Then, I picked up my phone.

I dialed the number of the private investigator I had kept on retainer for strict business background checks.

"I want everything on Gemma Chan," I said into the line, my voice devoid of mercy.

"Dig until you hit hell."