I woke to white.

White walls. White sheets. White curtains lifting in a breeze that smelled like salt and thyme.

My body screamed. Every breath dragged glass through my ribs. My left arm was wrapped tight, gauze from wrist to shoulder. When I tried to sit up, the room tilted and my stomach lurched.

"Easy." A hand steadied my shoulder. Gentle. Firm.

Zane Brooks sat in a chair beside the bed. He wore a plain gray shirt. His sleeves were rolled up. There were shadows under his eyes like he hadn't slept in days.

"Where am I?" My voice cracked. My throat felt raw.

"A clinic. On an island off the coast of Greece." He poured water into a cup and held it out. "You've been unconscious for three days."

I stared at the cup. At his hand. At the window behind him where sunlight poured over blue water.

"Seth," I whispered. "Does he know I'm—"

"The world thinks Lyra Bennett is dead." Zane's voice was quiet. Steady. "You're free now."

The words hit me like a fist.

Free.

I looked down at my bandaged arm. At the IV taped to the back of my hand. At the white sheets that weren't silk or Egyptian cotton, just clean and plain.

"You had no right," I said.

Zane didn't flinch. "I know."

"Take me back."

"Why?"

The question was so simple it made me want to scream.

"Because he's my husband!" My voice broke. "Because I didn't ask you to—"

"He left you in a burning car, Lyra."

I grabbed the water cup and hurled it at the wall. It shattered. Water streaked down the plaster.

Zane didn't move. He just looked at me with those steady, patient eyes.

"When you're healed enough to walk," he said quietly, "I'll take you anywhere you want."

Then he stood, walked to the door, and closed it softly behind him.

I was alone.

---

The days blurred.

Zane came in twice a day to change my bandages. He never stayed long. He never asked how I felt. He just worked in silence, his hands careful and clinical, then left.

Meals appeared outside my door. Bread. Cheese. Olives. Fruit. I ate because my body demanded it, not because I wanted to.

At night, I stared at the ceiling and counted my losses.

My baby. Gone.

My marriage. A lie.

My name. Erased.

I had nothing left. Not even a grave.

---

On the fifth night, I woke clawing at my own skin.

The fire was back. I felt it crawling up my legs, curling around my ribs, filling my lungs with smoke. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't scream.

I rolled out of bed and hit the floor hard. My knees cracked against the tile. I tore at the bandages on my arm, trying to rip them off, trying to get the fire out.

The door opened.

Zane was there. He didn't turn on the light. He just knelt beside me and caught my wrists.

"You're not burning," he said. His voice was low. Calm. "Lyra. You're not burning."

"I can feel it!" I sobbed. "I can feel it, I can—"

"You're safe. You're here. With me."

He didn't let go. He just held my wrists until my breathing slowed, until the phantom heat faded, until I was just a woman on a cold floor in the dark.

"I'm sorry," I whispered.

"Don't be."

He helped me back into bed. He pulled the blanket up to my chin. Then he sat in the chair and stayed.

I didn't ask him to. He just did.

---

Back in Seattle, Seth Montgomery stood in front of a closed casket.

The memorial was small. Private. Just family and a few board members who felt obligated to attend.

Avery stood with his hands folded. Aitana sat in a wheelchair, her legs covered with a blanket. She hadn't walked since the crash.

Seth stared at the polished wood. He knew it was empty. There had been nothing left to bury.

He thought about the last time he'd seen Lyra's face. Through the cracked windshield. Her mouth open. Her fists pounding glass.

He'd pulled Aitana out first.

He couldn't remember why.

The service ended. People filed out. Seth didn't move.

When the room was empty, he walked to the casket and pressed both palms against the wood.

"I'm sorry," he said.

The words felt hollow. Useless.

He went home to the penthouse. Lyra's things were still there. Her books. Her shoes. The cheap ring he'd bought her from a pawn shop when they had nothing.

He sat on the floor and held the ring in his fist.

Something was wrong.

The brake failure had been too clean. Too specific. And Aitana had been in the car. Why?

He pulled out his phone and made a call.

"Victor Vance," a rough voice answered.

"I need you to investigate a car accident," Seth said. "I need to know who touched that vehicle before my wife got in it."

There was a pause.

"You want the truth?" Victor asked. "Or you want to feel better?"

"I want the truth."

"Then don't call me off when you find it."

Seth closed his eyes. "I won't."

He hung up and stared at the empty penthouse.

Somewhere, in a place he couldn't name, Lyra was still alive.

He didn't know that yet.

But he would.

By the second week, I could walk to the end of the garden without shaking.

The island was loud in the mornings. Goats. Church bells. Wind pushing through the olive trees. I stood barefoot on warm stone and pressed my fingers to the bandage on my arm, right over the burn. It had become a habit.

I didn't know what was happening in Seattle. I didn't ask.

I learned it later. Zane told me some. Elias told me more. The rest I watched myself, on a laptop, with the sound turned low and my hands cold in my lap.

This is how it went.

---

Victor Vance didn't knock. He dropped a folder on Seth's desk at midnight and stood there, arms crossed.

"Brake lines were cut clean," Victor said. "Professional. The work order came from a garage contractor. The contractor was paid by a shell company. I followed the shell to a holding firm in Delaware."

"And?"

"And the firm belongs to your father."

Seth didn't answer. He read the signature at the bottom of the page. He knew that handwriting. It had signed his birthday cards.

---

The study smelled like leather and old smoke. Mahogany panels. One lamp. Avery Montgomery sat behind his desk with a glass of scotch, his pocket watch open beside it.

Seth threw the folder onto the blotter.

"Explain this."

Avery glanced at it. He didn't pick it up. "You've been busy."

"You cut her brakes."

"I had them cut." He sipped. "There's a difference."

Seth's voice came out thin. "She was carrying my child. Weeks before."

"She was carrying a stain." Avery set the glass down. His tone was flat, the way he'd order a coffee. "I corrected your mistake, Seth. You should be thanking me."

The room went silent.

Then Seth crossed the desk. He didn't remember deciding to. His hands closed around his father's throat and he felt the pulse jump under his thumbs. Avery's face went red. The pocket watch hit the floor.

A bodyguard hauled Seth backward by the shoulders. Another one caught Avery as he slid sideways, coughing.

Seth stood panting in the lamplight.

"You're done," he said.

Avery rubbed his neck. He laughed, rough and short. "You can't—"

"My lawyers will file tonight. The board gets a statement at dawn. Your name comes off the building." Seth wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "You're not my father. You're not a Montgomery. You're nobody."

For the first time, Avery's hands shook.

---

Victor had saved the worst for last.

He laid the pages out across the penthouse floor like a crime scene. Seth sat among them in yesterday's shirt.

"The texts first," Victor said. "The ones you saw. Lyra and some man, hotel meetups."

"I confronted her about those."

"They were fake. Forged metadata. Built on a burner phone traced to Aitana's cosmetics account." He slid a printout across. "Your wife never had an affair."

Seth stared at the paper. He remembered Lyra's face when he'd shown her the screen. She hadn't argued. She'd just looked tired.

"Next." Victor tapped a transcript. "Chloe Jenkins. Nurse at St. Anne's. She swapped Lyra's prenatal vitamins for something that thins the lining. She recorded every call with Aitana, probably for insurance. Listen."

He pressed play.

*"Just make sure she takes them,"* Aitana's voice said, sweet as honey. *"I'll take care of the rest."*

Seth flinched like he'd been hit.

"And the suicide attempt," Victor went on. "Two years ago. Pills, wrists, the whole show. You carried her out of the bathroom."

"I remember."

"She bought the razor at a theater supply shop. The blood was stage blood. There's a receipt."

Seth laughed once. It wasn't a laugh. "I stayed with her for two years because of that."

"I know."

"I told Lyra to be patient with her."

Victor said nothing. There was nothing decent to say.

---

The last file was a video.

"Hospital security," Victor said. "The night of the miscarriage. I pulled all the angles, not just the one Aitana showed your family."

Seth pressed play.

A hallway. Fluorescent light. At the far end, a gurney rolled past, and a woman on it curled in half. I could have told him who she was. I could have told him what the floor felt like.

Three doors down, Aitana leaned against the wall with her phone to her ear.

She was smiling.

She checked her nails. She laughed at something. Behind her, I was bleeding through a hospital gown, calling for a husband who wasn't there.

Seth watched it once.

He rewound it.

He watched it a second time. A third.

A fourth.

Victor stood at the window with his back turned. He didn't speak. Rain ran down the glass, forty-two floors up, and the footage kept playing, the same smile, the same hallway.

Seth didn't move. Didn't blink. His hand rested on the mouse like it belonged to someone else.

---

On the island, that same night, I woke up cold.

No fire. No smoke. Just a chill that started in my chest and spread outward, like someone had opened a window in a faraway room.

I pressed my fingers to my scar and lay there until morning.

I didn't know why.