Chapter 5

"Angelique Church Cemetery. Plot 278."

Those words repeated themselves over and over in my head like some kind of prayer as the taxi drove off, leaving me alone before the tall, black iron gates. The searing pain radiating up my bandaged leg meant nothing to me. Neither did the fact that beneath my coat I still wore nothing but a thin hospital gown, stained with dried blood.

I made my way through the rows of gray headstones, limping against the bite of the winter wind, until I finally reached that small, isolated corner of the cemetery grounds.

Plot 278.

Just a small, unmarked slab of stone waited there. No name carved into it. No date. Only a patch of cold, neglected earth that time had forgotten.

My legs buckled beneath me, and I sank down into the frozen dirt, my fingers trembling as they traced along the stone's rough surface. A full decade. For ten entire years, my child had lain out here in the dark, utterly alone.

"My precious boy," I breathed, my voice splintering apart as a violent sob ripped through my chest. "It's Mommy. I'm finally here. Forgive me for taking this long—I'm so terribly sorry."

With shaking hands I pulled open my coat and drew out the ruined blue blanket, still caked with the mud from Vienna's boot. I smoothed it out carefully and laid it across the frigid stone, as though it might somehow keep him warm.

I couldn't bring myself to leave. Instead I stretched out on the frozen ground beside the grave, curling my body around the stone the way I would have held him in my arms. All through the night I spoke to him, humming the lullabies I'd carried silently in my heart for years, weeping until my voice gave out completely and no more tears would come.

By the time the pale gray light of dawn crept over the horizon, my body had gone entirely numb.

Somehow I forced myself upright and dragged my broken, exhausted frame toward the cemetery warden's office. The elderly man seated behind the desk stared at me in open alarm—a pale, shaking woman who looked more ghost than living person.

"I want to purchase the plot beside 278," I said, my voice scraped raw.

"Ma'am, those plots don't come cheap, and honestly, you look like you belong in a hospital—"

Before he could finish, I reached down and wrenched the enormous diamond wedding ring from my finger with a violent twist. The symbol of ten years spent trapped in a nightmare. I slammed it down onto his desk, the stone catching the light.

"That ring alone is worth well over a hundred thousand dollars," I told him, my eyes empty and dead. "Keep whatever's left over. I only want the ground beside my son. And I want it settled right now."

The warden swallowed hard and nodded, understanding settling over his features.

Deed in hand, I made my way back to the gravesite. Overhead, the sky had darkened into an angry, bruised shade of purple, and moments later it broke open entirely.

A brutal, freezing downpour crashed down over Seattle, soaking through my clothing within seconds and chilling me straight down to the bone. Still, I didn't move toward shelter. I dropped to my knees directly into the mud, right on the ground I had just purchased.

"Take me too," I called out toward the weeping, empty sky, rain mixing with the tears streaming down my face. "Please. Just let me stay here. Bury me right here beside him."

I lowered my head onto the muddy earth and closed my eyes, letting the icy rain pound against my back without resistance. I remained there, unmoving, as afternoon slowly bled into evening. My pulse slowed. The cold no longer registered as pain—only a heavy, peaceful numbness settling over everything.

All I wanted was to sleep.

And as complete darkness finally swallowed the cemetery whole, the world around me dissolved into nothing.

Two days passed.

Inside the VIP maternity suite at Seattle Grace Hospital, a newborn's piercing cries filled every corner of the room without pause.

Edmund pressed his fingers against his temples, a headache pounding relentlessly behind his eyes. Vienna lounged across the hospital bed, scrolling through her phone, seemingly deaf to the red-faced infant wailing in the bassinet just a few feet from her.

"Vienna, get him to stop screaming," Edmund snapped, his patience worn thin to nothing. "My mother and half the board are due here within the hour to meet the heir."

"I just went through labor, Edmund!" Vienna whined without so much as glancing up from her screen. "I'm not wrecking my recovery rocking a baby. Where the hell are the nurses?"

"They're occupied," Edmund growled back. He glared down at the screaming child, irritation flaring hot and sudden inside him. Dirty diapers and crying fits held zero appeal for him. All he wanted was the title that came with fatherhood, none of the mess attached to it.

That was when a thought occurred to him.

Camila.

She'd gone silent for days now. Suspiciously silent. She should have been here, tending to them, keeping Vienna comfortable, handling all the unpleasant work that came with raising a child so neither of them would have to.

"Useless woman," Edmund muttered under his breath, fishing his phone from his pocket. "She's probably wallowing in self-pity back at the house. I'll have her down here playing nanny within twenty minutes."

He dialed her number, his polished leather shoe tapping an impatient rhythm against the floor.

The phone rang once. Then twice. A third time.

Finally, the call connected.

"Camila, where in God's name are you?" Edmund snapped the instant the line opened, his voice thick with venom. "Get yourself to this hospital immediately. Vienna needs someone watching the baby, and if you're not standing here before the board walks in, I swear I'll—"

"Hello."

Edmund went still. A man's voice answered him—low, cold, and completely unrecognizable.

His fingers tightened around the phone, an unfamiliar unease crawling slowly up his spine. "Who is this? Why are you answering my wife's phone? Put Camila on right now."

A heavy, unsettling silence stretched out on the other end. Only the faint whisper of rain and wind carried through the line.

Then the voice returned, flat and utterly without feeling.

"I apologize, sir. But the person this phone belongs to has already been laid to rest."