"She'll miss you terribly."
"Tell her…" My throat tightens. "Tell her I love her more than my own life. That everything I've done has been for her."
“What happens when he realizes we’re gone?”
I have no idea. Best case scenario, he won’t care. Two less people to worry about. "I'll face whatever comes." Remembering one more thing, I reach into my pocket and pull out a locket. “Give this to her when the time is right.”
Nanny Fiona sniffs as she looks into the locket to see two pictures—one of me just after Brigit was born, and one of baby Brigit. I’d had them taken just before I returned home after giving birth. I needed the pictures in case they sent her away.
That night,as I get ready for bed, I stare at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. I’m not the young, naïve woman I was when Phoenix and I conceived Brigit. I see a strong, determined woman on the verge of breaking, not because of Phoenix’s punishments, but at losing my child.
I’m proud of my strength even as I resent having to access it. But I've made my decision. The only way to ensure Brigit's safety is for me to remain here with Phoenix, keeping his focus firmly on me and away from my daughter's trail.
Being with him isn’t about love or hoping to find the man I once wanted to spend my life with. I can't afford wishing for fairy tales. This is about survival. About ensuring Brigit has a safe, fulfilled life away from the violence and vengeance now filling this house.
I’ll do my part and be the wife every Mob leader wants. And I’ll do it willingly because every moment I spend in his presence, every time I endure his touch or his rage, will be a moment he’s not hunting for Brigit.
Chances are Phoenix won't miss Brigit when she's gone. She's just a child he barely knows. Hampton's goddaughter, nothing more to him. The thought is both relief and knife-twist. My daughter means everything to me and nothing to her own father. How bitterly fitting.
It breaks my heart that Brigit won’t know I really am her mother. Not one she needs to pretend about. But I've spent ten years pretending she isn't mine. What's a lifetime more of the same lie? At least she'll be free.
I step out of the bathroom and climb into bed. I lie awake, staring at shadows dancing across the ceiling. My body is exhausted, but my mind races. I hope I’ve planned this right. I hope I’ve anticipated all the areas it could go wrong and made contingencies.
Am I doing the right thing? What if something goes wrong? What if Phoenix discovers them before they can escape?
I curl onto my side, pulling my knees to my chest like I did as a child when the world felt too overwhelming. How ironic that all I’ve ever done was try to give Brigit a life in which she didn’t have to know this feeling. I wanted to give her everything I never had. Safety, unconditional love, freedom.
Instead, I'm sending her away with nothing but cash, fake documents, and a nanny who loves her like family but isn't her mother.
God, I hate my parents for this. For all of it. For forcing me to hide my pregnancy, for making me pretend my own child wasn't mine, for murdering Phoenix's family and blaming it on me. They took everything from me. My love, my future, my right to be a mother to my own child.
And Phoenix… I hate him too. For not believing in my love ten years ago. For thinking I’d betray him after I gave all of myself to him. For not recognizing that I never stopped loving him, not for a single day in ten years. For being so consumed by revenge that he can’t see that we could have had a second chance… a chance he ruined.
I wonder what my life would be like if Phoenix could find his way back to the man he once was. The boy who looked at me like I was the center of his world.
What if we could build something real from these ashes? If the hatred in his eyes could soften to forgiveness. If the cruelty could melt away to reveal the tender heart I once knew. Would we wake up on Sunday mornings with Brigit bouncing on our bed, demanding pancakes? Would Phoenix help her with homework and teach her to stand tall against the world's cruelties?
I close my eyes and let myself imagine a future where Phoenix knows Brigit is his daughter. Where instead of rage, he feels wonder. Where he holds her small hand in his and sees himself reflected in her eyes. Where the three of us become the family we were always meant to be.
In this dream, Phoenix's laugh returns, that full-bodied sound I haven't heard since we were teenagers sneaking kisses in his father's library. The darkness that haunts him fades in the light of our daughter's smile.
But dreams are for children and fools. And I stopped being either long ago.
Even if by some miracle he could find his way back to himself, how could I ever trust him with my heart? Or with Brigit? How could I risk her happiness, her safety, on the chance that his love for her might overcome his hatred for my family?
I press my palm against my heart, feeling it break all over again. Some losses cut too deep to ever heal properly. This one, losing Brigit, losing the future we might have had, will bleed inside me until the day I die.
18
PHOENIX
Isit at my desk, rubbing my temples as I try to make sense of it all. Three days of surveillance, and nothing. Absolutely fucking nothing.
"She's not meeting anyone?" I ask again, looking up at Davis, one of the men I assigned to watch Keira.
"No, sir. She spends most of her time organizing the wedding. Makes calls to vendors, reviews menus, checks floral arrangements. Standard stuff."
"And when she's not doing that?"
