---- Chapter 5 Ivy Farley POV: The locket. The tiny, silver heart | had commissioned, engraved with the date our son was supposed to be born. | kept it in a velvet-lined box at the cabin, along with his single ultrasound picture and a pair of tiny knitted booties. It was all | had of him. It was sacred. And Holden had given it to her. The air left my lungs in a painful rush. It wasn't just a betrayal of me anymore. It was a betrayal of Leo. Holden hadn' t just moved on; he was actively trying to erase the most important, most painful part of our shared history. He was giving our son' s memory to his mistress. A guttural sound of pure agony tore from my throat. | didn' t even realize | was moving until | was in my car, barking an address at the driver. The hospital. The one our family owned, the one where Holden would have taken her. My men fell into formation around my car, a silent, deadly procession cutting through the city. When we arrived, the hospital lobby was eerily quiet. Holden' s men were everywhere, their dark suits and grim faces a clear message: stay away. ---- But | was the queen of this city. They worked for my husband, but they feared me. They parted before me like the Red Sea. | found her room on the top floor, the private VIP suite. The door was slightly ajar, a deliberate invitation. Holden knew | was coming. He wanted me to see this. To hear this. | stopped just outside, hidden in the shadows of the hallway. Kaela' s voice, raw and choked with tears, drifted out. "Why won't you do something?" she was crying, the words punctuated by hiccuping sobs. "She tried to kill me, Holden! She tried to kill our baby! You have to kill her! For us!" A long silence followed. | could picture him, standing by the window, looking out at the city, his face impassive. He was letting her vent, letting the storm pass. "It's gone," she wailed. "The doctor said... there's no heartbeat. Our baby is gone. We waited three years for this baby, Holden! Three years!" Three years. The words slammed into me with the force of a physical blow. My hand flew to my mouth to stifle a gasp. Three years ago was when | had lost Leo. Three years ago, | had been ambushed by Geraldo Jones's men. |' d taken a brutal blow to the stomach, trying to shield Holden. It had cost us our son And all that time, while | was grieving, while | was trying to piece myself back together, Holden had been with her. Trying ---- -s for a baby with her. The timeline was a brutal, undeniable confirmation. My loss had been the beginning of their future. | leaned against the wall, my legs threatening to give out. The world was spinning, the hospital hallway tilting and warping around me. "Hush, my love," Holden's voice was a low, soothing murmur. It was the voice he used on me after my nightmares. The voice that had promised me safety and forever. "It will be alright. We will have another. | promise you." | heard the rustle of clothes, the dip of the hospital bed. | peeked through the crack in the door. He was on his knees on the bed, leaning over her, stroking her hair. He kissed her forehead, her tear-stained cheeks, her lips. It was a worshipful, tender display that made my stomach churn with a venomous mix of jealousy and disgust. "| will take you to the temple," he whispered, his promise a dagger in my heart. "We will light the lantern of continuity. We'll pray for another child. A healthy, pure child. Our child." The lantern of continuity. The small, private temple we had funded, where we had gone to pray for Leo. The place where we had lit a lantern for his soul, a flame we had promised to keep burning forever. Holden was going to take her there. He was going to replace our son' s lantern with one for their new, "pure" child. My hand, the one holding the locket from the photo she'd sent, went slack. The small silver heart slipped from my grasp and ---- hit the polished marble floor with a soft, metallic clink. & The sound was quiet, but in the hush of the hallway, it was as loud as a gunshot.