Chapter 57 Fifty seven

Chapter 57 Fifty seven
‎Isolde
‎
‎The apartment was too quiet.
‎Weeks had dragged by since that last night in my room, since Zander had stormed out with rage and pain in his eyes, slamming the door so hard the walls had shaken. I hadn’t heard from him since. No calls, no messages or late-night knocks at my door. Nothing but silence that grew heavier with every passing day.
‎Maren had warned me not to reach out.
‎“Don’t you dare contact him,” she had said the morning after, her voice cold and final. “You’ve already done enough damage. Let him sit with the truth and feel the weight of what he did to you that night. If you go running after him now, you’ll ruin everything we’ve worked for.”
‎So I stayed away.
‎I threw myself into the plan instead meetings with vael Partners, late nights reviewing files, careful moves that kept me visible but not suspicious. I smiled in public because thanks to celeste and her father I've become the talk of the town, I wore the right clothes and I played the part of Iris, the successful businesswoman who had shaken the Ashveil world and lived to tell the tale.
‎But inside, I was empty.
‎Every night I lay in bed replaying that morning in his penthouse. The way he had looked at me when I said “fuck me.” The way he had slammed into me like he was trying to punish us both. The way he had filled me so completely I could still feel the ghost of him inside me weeks later. The way he had held me afterward, forehead pressed to mine, breathing hard like I was the only thing keeping him alive.
‎And then the fight.
‎His accusations, my tears. The way his voice had cracked when he asked if any of it was real.
‎I missed him.
‎I hated that I missed him.
‎I hated myself for missing the man who had once called me disgusting in front of the entire pack.
‎Maren’s warning echoed in my head every time I picked up my phone and stared at his name.
‎Don’t reach out.
‎Don’t ruin the plan.
‎Don’t let him win.
‎So I didn’t.
‎But the silence was killing me slowly.
‎This morning, I stood in the bathroom of my apartment, staring at the small white stick on the counter like it was a live grenade.
‎Two lines it was clear and unmistakable.
‎Pregnant.
‎My hands started shaking so badly I had to grip the edge of the sink to stay upright.
‎Pregnant.
‎With Zander’s child.
‎The realization hit me like a wave, knocking the breath out of my lungs. I slid down the wall until I was sitting on the cold tile floor, knees drawn up to my chest, staring at the test like it could somehow change the answer if I looked at it long enough.
‎A baby.
‎Our baby.
‎The thought brought a rush of something warm and terrifying at the same time...a fierce, protective love that bloomed so fast it scared me. I pressed a hand to my still-flat stomach, imagining the tiny life growing inside me. Zander’s eyes. Maybe my smile. A child who would carry pieces of both of us.
‎But the warmth was quickly swallowed by cold, crushing fear.
‎Maren could never know.
‎If she found out, she would see this as the ultimate betrayal. She would see it as proof that I had completely lost control of the plan. She would demand I end it. She would say the child was a weakness, a liability, a way for Aldric to control me forever. She would look at me with that same cold disappointment she had shown the morning after the fight, and she would remind me of every sacrifice she had made for our revenge.
‎And I was terrified of what she might do if she knew.
‎Maren had already proven she was willing to do whatever it took to protect the plan. She had trained me like a weapon. She had hidden me and had buried the truth to keep me focused. If she saw this pregnancy as a threat to everything we had built, she might…
‎I couldn’t even finish the thought.
‎I wrapped my arms tighter around my knees, rocking slightly on the floor.
‎What have I done?
‎Weeks of silence from Zander, and now this. A child. A living, breathing reminder of every time I had let him inside me, every time I had moaned his name, every time I had told myself the feelings were real even while I was supposed to be destroying him.
‎I thought about that last morning in his penthouse. The way he had fucked me like he was trying to erase the pain between us. The way he had filled me so deep and so full. The way I had begged for more, even knowing it was dangerous.
‎And now there was a baby.
‎I pressed my forehead to my knees, tears slipping down my cheeks.
‎He doesn’t know.
‎He can’t know.
‎Not yet.
‎The silence in the bathroom was deafening. Outside, the city kept moving, indifferent to the storm inside me. Maren would be expecting me to check in soon. She had been watching me closer than ever since our fight, making sure I didn’t reach out to Zander, making sure the plan stayed on track.
‎I couldn’t tell her.
‎Not now.
‎Not when I didn’t even know what I was going to do myself.
‎I stood up slowly on shaky legs, picked up the pregnancy test, and stared at the two lines again.
‎Positive and undeniable.
‎A small, secret smile touched my lips for just a second fierce, protective, maternal before the fear crashed back in.
‎This child was mine.
‎This child was Zander’s and this child might be the thing that finally broke everything we had built… or the thing that forced us all to face the truth.
‎I wrapped the test in tissue and hid it deep in the back of a drawer.
‎Then I washed my face, fixed my makeup, and stepped out of the bathroom like nothing had changed.
‎But everything had.
‎And I had no idea how long I could keep this secret before it destroyed us all.