Chapter 132

Chapter 132
NAYA'S POV

Stella’s body trembled in my arms, and I held her tighter, pressing my cheek against the top of her head as if my embrace alone could shield her from the weight of all the grief pressing in. Her sobs came in waves, ragged and uneven, and each one seemed to echo inside my chest until my own ribs ached with the sound. I rocked her slightly, instinctively, the way one might calm a frightened child, even though I knew there were no easy comforts left for her to lean on.

The hospital lobby was quiet except for the distant murmur of nurses behind the front desk and the faint hum of the overhead lights. Then, all at once, the silence was fractured by the urgent voice of a reporter spilling out from the small television mounted in the corner of the room. My eyes darted up, and the bold red words on the screen froze my breath in my throat: Breaking News—Sudden Explosion in Town.

The image cut to a shaky video feed, smoke billowing into the night sky, flames eating away at what used to be a building. My heart lurched violently, so hard that for a moment I couldn’t breathe. The thought struck me like a physical blow—what if it was Stella’s home? What if her siblings were in there? My pulse hammered as I swallowed back panic and forced myself to speak.

“Is it?” The question tore out of me before I could even think, my voice sharp, too loud, too desperate.

Stella lifted her tear-streaked face from my chest, her wide eyes darting toward the screen. I could feel the breath she was holding, could almost hear the way her heart must have been thundering inside her chest. Her lips parted as though she might scream, but instead she gasped, her shoulders stiffening under my hands.

For one unbearable moment, I thought her silence meant the worst. But then she exhaled shakily, her lips quivering as she whispered, “No… it’s not.”

Her voice cracked on the last word, fragile and broken, and then she collapsed back against me, burying her face in my chest once again as though the relief had left her too weak to hold herself upright. I held her tighter, pressing my chin gently against her hair, my own relief clashing with the dread that still clawed at my insides. Because even if it wasn’t her home this time, the possibility was still out there, hanging over us like a guillotine waiting to fall.

I rubbed slow circles across her back, trying to steady her breathing, trying to steady my own. “It’s okay,” I murmured softly, though the words felt thin, fragile, too small for what she was enduring. Still, I poured every ounce of conviction I had into them, willing her to believe me. “I believe Arthur will sort things out. He won’t let your uncle win. And your siblings… they’ll be fine.”

Stella gave the smallest nod against my chest, her damp cheek brushing my shirt as if to anchor herself in the sound of my voice. I felt the warmth of her tears soaking into the fabric, and I didn’t care. I held her as if she might fall apart completely if I loosened my grip for even a second.

Inside, though, I was crumbling too. Arthur’s words replayed in my mind—reverse the threats. His voice had carried a determination that I desperately wanted to trust, but beneath that determination, I had seen the storm gathering in his eyes. He was walking into dangerous territory, and every part of me feared what that might cost him.

Still, in that moment, with Stella trembling in my arms, I pushed my fears aside. She needed hope more than anything. She needed to feel that we weren’t already lost. So I kept rubbing her back, kept murmuring quiet reassurances into her hair, even if I was saying them as much for myself as I was for her.

And somewhere deep down, I prayed—prayed that Arthur was right, that his plan would hold, and that the people we loved would survive whatever storm was already breaking outside these hospital walls.
Then, a nurse from the emergency unit that had taken Jordan emerged from the same direction and told us that Jordan was still under immediate treatment but that he was now out of danger.
The moment the nurse’s words left her mouth, I felt my body finally give up the fight it had been waging against tension all day. My shoulders sagged, and I didn’t even realize I’d been holding my breath until it came out in one shaky rush.
'Out of danger.'
Those words landed like an anchor, heavy but steady, dragging my scattered thoughts back into place. For the first time since we arrived at the hospital, I could actually feel my chest rising and falling without that awful tightness, as though someone had been sitting on me the whole time and finally moved away.

Beside me, Stella let out this raw, unfiltered sigh, her relief spilling over like she had been carrying a weight so crushing she thought it might snap her spine. She leaned into me again, her forehead pressing against my shoulder, and I could feel her trembling—not with grief this time, but with the aftershocks of sheer relief. I wrapped my arms around her automatically, pulling her closer, the way you cradle someone who feels like they’re about to fall apart even in their moment of reprieve.

We both turned to the nurse at the same time, our voices overlapping with a soft, almost desperate, “Thank you.” It wasn’t the kind of thank you you toss out when someone holds the door or hands you a receipt. It was thick with gratitude, soaked in that fragile kind of hope you don’t want to jinx by saying too loudly. The nurse only gave us a small nod, a professional smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes, like she had delivered news like this too many times to let it show how much it mattered. And maybe to her it was routine—just a status report—but to us, it was the difference between despair and the tiniest sliver of light.

I squeezed Stella’s hand after the nurse walked away, grounding her, grounding myself. Her palm was clammy, her fingers cold, but she squeezed back, and that small exchange of pressure felt like a promise neither of us could put into words. We weren’t out of the storm yet, not even close, but at least Jordan wasn’t slipping away from us in the middle of it.

In my head, though, thoughts kept churning. If Jordan had been that close to the edge, how much more danger were the others in? Where was Arthur now, and what exactly was he planning? His words before he left—I’m going to reverse the threats—echoed in me like a bell that hadn’t stopped ringing. I wanted to believe in his confidence, in his ability to outmaneuver whoever was holding Stella’s siblings hostage, but doubt pressed into me from every angle. The explosion on the news still lingered in my vision too, like a shadow burned into the back of my eyelids. If Arthur didn’t act fast enough, if he pushed too hard, would we wake up tomorrow to headlines that confirmed every fear Stella carried in her fragile body right now?

I didn’t say any of this out loud. Stella didn’t need my doubts added to her grief. Instead, I just smoothed my hand over her hair, shushing her like she was a child who needed to be protected from the noise of the world. “We’ll hold on,” I murmured, more to myself than her, but she gave the smallest nod, her face still hidden in the curve of my neck.

And for the first time in hours, I let myself believe, even if just for that moment, that things might actually turn out better than the storm raging around us wanted us to think.