Kian's hand left mine.

Not a release. Not a gentle letting go. His fingers simply opened and my hand dropped through empty air.

He moved before I could process it. Down the altar steps. His shoes struck marble in a rhythm I knew—the same quick stride he used when a client called, when his phone buzzed with something urgent, when the world required him somewhere else.

I stood in my mother's dress and watched his back.

He ran up the aisle. Past the front pews where his mother sat frozen with her program clutched against her chest. Past his business partner. Past the college roommate who'd flown in from Seattle. Past three hundred people who had come to watch him marry me.

Aleyna lay crumpled on the marble like a dropped silk scarf. One arm stretched toward nothing. Her hair fanned across the stone in waves that caught the light from the stained glass windows.

Kian dropped to his knees beside her.

He gathered her into his arms. Cradled her head against his chest. His mouth moved—I couldn't hear the words but I knew them anyway. The shape of her name on his lips.

"Aleyna."

Not Eloise.

The officiant stood beside me with his book still open. His mouth worked but no sound came out. The string quartet had stopped mid-phrase. A single violin note hung in the air, then died.

I smoothed the front of my dress with both hands.

The wire around my ribs pulled so tight I couldn't breathe.

In the front pew, my mother made a sound.

Small. Wet. Broken.

I turned.

Margaret's hand was pressed flat against her chest. Her mouth hung open. The cream shawl had slipped from her shoulders and pooled around the wheelchair's armrests. The oxygen tubes had come loose. They dangled uselessly against her collarbone.

Her eyes found mine.

I took one step down from the altar.

My heel caught.

The hem of the dress—the one the seamstress had let out so carefully, the one that had smelled like lavender and mothballs and my mother's hope—wrapped around my ankle like a fist.

I fell.

The first stair caught my hip. The second hit my ribs. The third drove the air from my lungs in a sound I didn't recognize as my own voice.

I landed at the bottom.

The marble was cold against my cheek. I tried to push myself up. My arms wouldn't hold.

Something warm spread beneath me. Wet. Too much of it.

I looked down.

The white dress was turning red.

The stain bloomed outward from between my legs, soaking through the fabric in a pattern that looked almost beautiful. Like watercolor. Like the roses I'd chosen for the bouquet I'd dropped somewhere between the altar and the floor.

Someone screamed.

I turned my head. Margaret was still in the wheelchair. Still pressed against the backrest. But something had changed in her face. The color. The shape of her mouth.

The nurse was running toward her. Her shoes made sharp clicks on the marble.

"Call 911!" someone shouted.

I tried to sit up. Pain split through my abdomen—white and sharp and wrong. I fell back.

The baby.

Twelve weeks. Small enough to fit in the palm of my hand. Big enough to have a heartbeat.

I pressed both hands against my stomach.

The blood kept coming.

"Eloise!" A man's voice. Not Kian's. Someone else. "Don't move—just stay still—"

Feet thundered past me. The nurse was doing something to my mother. Pressing her fingers against Margaret's throat. Tilting her head back. Starting compressions that made the wheelchair rock.

"No pulse!" the nurse shouted. "I need the AED—someone get the AED—"

I tried to crawl toward her. My arms gave out. My cheek hit the floor again.

Across the chapel, Kian was still kneeling. Still holding Aleyna. Her head rested against his shoulder. Her eyes were open now. She was looking directly at me.

She wasn't unconscious.

She'd never been unconscious.

Our eyes met across fifty feet of marble and stained glass light and three hundred witnesses.

She smiled.

Small. Satisfied.

Then she let her head fall back against Kian's chest and closed her eyes again.

Someone was lifting me. Hands under my shoulders. Under my knees. The movement sent another wave of pain through my body and I heard myself make a sound—high and animal.

"The ambulance is coming," a woman said. Close to my ear. "Just hold on. Just breathe."

I couldn't breathe.

The wire had crushed my ribs into powder.

They laid me on something flat. A gurney. The ceiling moved above me in panels of stone and wood and colored glass. Saints looked down with painted eyes that saw nothing.

I turned my head.

Margaret was on the floor now. The nurse was still doing compressions. Another woman—a guest, someone's wife—was counting out loud. "One two three four five—"

My mother's hand hung limp over the edge of the wheelchair.

I reached for her.

The paramedic caught my wrist. "Ma'am, you need to stay still—"

"My mother—"

"We've got her. We've got both of you. Just stay with me, okay? Stay with me."

But I wasn't with him.

I was twelve weeks pregnant and hemorrhaging on a chapel floor in my mother's wedding dress while the man I loved held another woman and my mother's heart stopped beating six feet away.

I was nowhere.

The doors opened. Cold air rushed in. They wheeled me toward the light.

Behind me, someone was crying. A woman. High and keening.

Not my mother.

My mother was silent.

The last thing I saw before they loaded me into the ambulance was Kian, finally standing, finally looking toward the altar.

But I was already gone.

I woke to white.

White ceiling. White walls. White sheets pulled tight across my chest. The room hummed with machines I couldn't see. Something beeped in steady rhythm near my head.

I didn't move.

My body felt distant. Hollow. Like someone had scooped out my insides and sewn me back together with nothing but air.

I knew before I touched my stomach. Before anyone spoke. The absence was absolute.

The baby was gone.

I turned my head toward the window. Grey light filtered through half-closed blinds. Morning or afternoon—I couldn't tell. Time had collapsed into something flat and meaningless.

Footsteps in the corridor. Soft-soled shoes on linoleum.

A nurse appeared in the doorway. Middle-aged. Kind eyes. She saw I was awake and her expression shifted—just for a second. Something careful moved across her face. Something that looked like pity wrapped in professional distance.

She didn't say it.

She didn't have to.

I turned back toward the wall and lay still. Breathing. In for four. Out for four. Counting the seconds between heartbeats until the numbers stopped meaning anything.

Hours passed. Maybe minutes. The light changed. The machines kept beeping.

Then I heard him.

Footsteps I knew. Heavier than the nurses'. Uneven. Like someone who'd been standing too long and forgot how to walk properly.

Kian appeared in the doorway.

He looked grey. Unwashed. His shirt was wrinkled and his tie hung loose around his neck like he'd pulled at it repeatedly and given up. His eyes were red-rimmed and hollow.

He took one step into the room. Stopped. Reached for the chair beside my bed and gripped the back like it was the only thing keeping him upright.

"Eloise," he said.

His voice cracked on my name.

I looked at him. This man who'd dropped my hand. Who'd run. Who'd held another woman while I bled on marble and my mother's heart stopped six feet away.

The wire around my ribs was gone.

Something colder had taken its place.

I blinked. Tilted my head. Let confusion drift across my face like clouds.

"Why are you crying?" I asked.

My voice came out soft. Bewildered. Sweet.

Kian froze.

"What?"

I smiled. Small. Uncertain. "You look so sad. Did something happen at work?"

He stared at me. His hand tightened on the chair until his knuckles went white.

"Eloise—" He stopped. Swallowed. Tried again. "Do you know where you are?"

I looked around the room. At the machines. The IV line running into my arm. The window with its grey light.

"The hospital?" I said it like a question. "Did I get sick? I feel so tired."

"You don't—" His voice broke completely. He pressed one hand over his mouth.

I reached for him. Let my fingers brush his wrist. "Kian? You're scaring me. What's wrong?"

"What's the last thing you remember?"

I frowned. Let my eyes drift toward the ceiling like I was searching for something just out of reach.

"We were looking at venues," I said slowly. "For the wedding. You liked the one with the terrace. The view of the park." I smiled at him. "We haven't set a date yet, have we? I keep forgetting to call the coordinator."

Kian made a sound. Low. Broken.

He sank into the chair and buried his face in his hands.

The door opened. A doctor stepped in—older man, silver hair, the kind of calm competence that came from thirty years of delivering bad news.

"Mr. Anderson," he said quietly. "I need to speak with you outside."

Kian didn't move.

"Mr. Anderson."

He lifted his head. Looked at me. Then at the doctor.

He stood and followed him into the corridor.

I lay still and listened.

Their voices carried through the half-open door. Low. Careful.

"Trauma-induced amnesia," the doctor said. "Not uncommon with this level of physical and emotional shock. Her memory appears to be fixed approximately eighteen months prior to the incident."

"Will it come back?"

"Impossible to say. Sometimes these things resolve in days. Sometimes weeks. Sometimes never."

Silence.

"She doesn't remember," Kian said. His voice was hollow. "She doesn't remember any of it."

"No," the doctor said. "And I would strongly advise against forcing the issue. Let her recover at her own pace. Pushing too hard could cause significant psychological damage."

More silence.

Then footsteps moving away down the corridor.

I turned my head toward the window and let my face go still.

Eighteen months ago, Kian and I had been happy. Or I'd believed we were. He'd brought me coffee in bed. Kissed my forehead before work. Held my hand at dinner parties.

Eighteen months ago, I hadn't known about Aleyna.

I smoothed the sheet with both hands and felt the folded paper still tucked inside my coat pocket somewhere in this building. My mother's note. Unread.

I would read it later.

When I was alone.

When I could afford to break.

Kian came back into the room. He sat in the chair and took my hand carefully, like I was made of glass.

"I'm here," he whispered. "I'm not going anywhere. I promise."

I squeezed his fingers and smiled.

"I love you," I said.

He closed his eyes.

A tear slid down his cheek.

I watched it fall and felt nothing.

The next morning, I heard shouting.

I was lying in bed pretending to sleep when the corridor exploded with noise. A man's voice—rough and furious.

"Where is he?"

Footsteps. Running.

"Sir, you need to calm down—"

"Get out of my way."

My door was closed but I heard everything. Uncle Preston's voice carried like a weapon.

"You."

A thud. Someone hitting a wall.

"Sir—"

"You murdered her." Preston's voice shook. "You stood there and let Margaret die. You ran to that woman and left Eloise bleeding on the floor. You killed my sister. You killed that baby. And you're sitting here like you have the right to grieve?"

Kian said something. Too low to hear.

"I don't want to hear it," Preston snarled. "You don't get to explain. You don't get to make excuses. Margaret is dead because of you. That child is dead because of you. And if Eloise remembers what you did—"

"Security!" A nurse's voice. Sharp.

Scuffling. More footsteps.

"If she remembers," Preston said, "I hope it destroys you."

Then he was gone.

Silence settled over the corridor like dust.

I lay in bed with my eyes closed and filed every word away in the cold place where I kept everything that mattered.

Kian came back into my room an hour later. He sat in the chair and didn't speak.

I opened my eyes and looked at him.

"Did I hear shouting?" I asked softly.

He shook his head. "Nothing. Just someone upset. It's fine."

I reached for his hand.

"I'm glad you're here," I said.

He brought my fingers to his lips and kissed them.

"Always," he whispered.

I smiled.

And behind my eyes, I began to plan.