Chapter 2

I woke up to the smell of antiseptic and the soft, rhythmic beep of a machine. My eyes fluttered open. This wasn't a hospital room. It was too luxurious, the walls a soft grey, the sheets a high-thread-count cotton. A private clinic. His clinic.

Julian was sitting in a leather armchair by the window, scrolling through his phone. He looked up when I stirred, his face completely calm.

"You're awake," he said, his voice even. He stood up and walked over to the bed. He didn't touch me. He just stood there, looking down at me.

"Where am I?" I whispered. My throat was raw.

"A safe place. You had a scare, Anya. You collapsed."

"The baby," I said, my hand instinctively going to my flat stomach. A wave of dread washed over me. "Is the baby okay?"

He was silent for a long moment. He walked to the window and looked out at the city lights. "There is no baby anymore, Anya."

The words didn't register at first. They were just sounds. Then they crashed into me, and the beeping of the machine next to me became frantic. The world narrowed to a single point of unbearable pain.

"No," I choked out. "No, you're lying."

He turned back to me, his expression unreadable. "The stress was too much for you. The doctors did what they had to do to save you."

"You did this," I sobbed, the words tearing out of me. "You killed our baby."

"I saved you," he corrected me, his voice dangerously soft. "You were becoming hysterical. Making a scene. This is better. It' s cleaner. Now we can move forward without any... complications."

"Complications?" I stared at him, my vision blurred by tears. "That was our child, Julian. Our child!"

"It was a clump of cells that was making you unstable," he said, his voice turning to ice. "It was a liability. You are a brilliant woman, Anya. You were letting sentiment cloud your judgment. You were going to throw away your entire future, and mine, over an emotional outburst."

I tried to sit up, to scream at him, to claw his smug face, but a fresh wave of pain shot through my abdomen, and I fell back against the pillows, gasping.

He watched me, his eyes dark. I saw it then. The man I thought I knew, the kind mentor, the passionate collaborator, he never existed. He was a mask. And underneath was this. A monster. A cold, calculating monster who saw a human life as a liability.

"I hate you," I whispered, the words filled with all the venom I could muster.

He walked to the bedside and finally, he touched me. He reached out and brushed a tear from my cheek with his thumb. The gesture was so gentle it was obscene.

"I know," he said softly. "But you'll get over it. You're strong. And you're mine. You're not going anywhere, Anya. I won't let you."

He leaned in close, his breath warm on my skin. "Don't ever try to leave me. Don't ever try to expose me. Because I have taken everything from you once. I can do it again. And next time, I won't be so concerned with 'saving' you."

I squeezed my eyes shut, but I couldn't block out the image of his face. The dream I had been living for the past two years had been a beautiful lie. Now, I was awake. And I was in hell. A dream I had last night came to mind. In the dream, my grandmother was there, holding a strange, star-shaped compass. She whispered, "The truth finds its own way home." The memory was a tiny, flickering candle in the crushing darkness of the room. It was all I had left.