---- Chapter 15 Amira Osborne POV: Five years. I thought the heartbreak would follow me, a persistent shadow. But the Chimera Project was all-consuming. We worked eighteen-hour days, fueled by coffee and the thrill of discovery, pushing the boundaries of artificial intelligence. There was no time to mourn a life that, in retrospect, had been a cage. When the project concluded, a resounding success, | didn't return to my old life. | traveled. | was sitting at a café in Florence when Maya called, her voice buzzing with the latest gossip about Carter and Francine's miserable, intertwined lives. It took me a moment to even place their names. They felt like characters from a book |' d read long ago. "Just be careful, Amira," she warned before hanging up. "A man that obsessed is a dangerous man." | promised | would, though the threat felt distant, unreal. Just then, a tiny body crashed into my legs. A little girl with big brown eyes and a cherubic smile looked up at me. "Mama!" she squealed, wrapping her arms tightly around my knees. | smiled, my heart melting. "Chloe, what did | say about ---- running off?" Arjun jogged up, breathless and laughing. "| swear, this child is faster than a speeding bullet." Chloe giggled and pointed at Arjun. "Daddy!" The little girl was the orphan of a colleague on the project who had passed away unexpectedly from an aneurysm. Chloe had latched onto Arjun and me, the two people who had shown her the most kindness in the wake of her parents' deaths. We had become her surrogate family. | was about to gently correct her when a sudden, frantic energy behind me made me tense up. A hand clamped down on my arm, the grip painfully tight. | turned to see a man | barely recognized. He was gaunt, his eyes wild and sunken, his clothes hanging off his skeletal frame. But | knew that obsessive glint in his eyes. Carter. His gaze was fixed on Chloe, his expression a mask of disbelief and rage. "Whose is it?" he demanded, his voice a raw, ragged thing. "Whose child is that? It's only been five years. How could you have a child this old?" The shock gave way to a cold, hard anger. | ripped my arm from his grasp. "That is none of your business." | kept my voice low and steady, trying not to scare Chloe. "We are nothing to each other, Carter. You have no right to ask me ---- that." Chloe, sensing my distress, started to cry and pummeled Carter' s leg with her tiny fists. "Leave my mommy alone!" Arjun stepped between us immediately, placing a protective hand on my shoulder. He looked Carter up and down with an expression of pure disdain. "Do you have a habit of accosting women and children, or is this a new hobby?" "This is my fiancée," Carter snarled, his eyes locking on Arjun's hand on my shoulder. | let out a short, humorless laugh. Arjun gave me a questioning look. "He's my ex," | clarified quietly. Arjun' s demeanor shifted from protective to confrontational. He adjusted his glasses, a new, steely edge to his voice. "Arjun Cortez. I've been Amira's colleague for the past five years. We've spent nearly every waking moment together." The implication was clear, a deliberate jab meant to wound. It worked. Carter' s face contorted with jealousy and pain. His hands clenched into fists at his sides. "Tell me the truth, Amira," he pleaded, his gaze fixed on me, ignoring Arjun completely. "Is he the father?"