Private Safehouse — 3:00 AM
The safehouse walls felt smaller, suffocating. Ivy sat on the floor near the window, legs tucked to her chest, still in her coat, her hands shaking. She hadn't taken a breath since the hangar.
Leo was asleep upstairs, guarded by Maddie and two of Aiden's most trusted men.
She hadn't spoken since they returned.
Aiden stood across the room, bloodied and furious, staring at the gun on the table like it had betrayed him.
"You okay?" he asked finally, voice hoarse.
"No," she said. "And neither are you."
He didn't deny it. Didn't speak.
So she did.
"He said he wants Leo."
Aiden turned slowly. "I know."
Her chest heaved. "Why now? Why not before? He had every chance."
"Because you made Leo matter," he replied. "He didn't expect that. He didn't expect you to fight back. Now he's trying to erase the threat before it grows."
Ivy stood, walked to him, eyes gleaming with restrained fury. "Leo is not a threat. He's a boy. Our boy. And Vincent Hale doesn't get to define what he becomes."
Aiden's jaw tightened. "That's what terrifies him."
Flashback — Eight Years Ago
The delivery room was chaos. Ivy's screams filled the air, and there were too many voices, too much blood.
She remembered reaching for someone—anyone—but no one was there.
Not Aiden. Not even a nurse who looked her in the eye.
Only pain.
And then Leo's cry, sharp and small, piercing through everything like a lifeline.
They placed him in her arms. Warm. Fragile. Alive.
She'd whispered, "You'll never know him," over and over, a promise to herself.
Even if she had to raise him in the shadows.
Present
"I can't keep doing this," Ivy whispered now. "Reacting. Running. Hoping Leo doesn't ask why there are cameras in his toys or why we move every six months."
"I know."
"Then let's end it."
Aiden looked at her. "We just tried."
"No," she said. "We survived. That's not the same thing."
Vincent Hale's Estate — Same Morning
Sophia stitched a graze across Vincent's shoulder in silence. His face was unreadable.
"You should rest."
"I don't rest when I'm hunted."
She glanced up. "She's not like before."
"She's mine," he snapped. "They both are. And I'll prove it."
He reached for a tablet and pulled up surveillance images—blurry footage of Leo at a park, Ivy at a clinic, Aiden near a safehouse.
"I don't need to break them," he said. "I just have to break their hope."
Safehouse — Breakfast
Leo blinked up at Ivy as she poured him cereal. "Were you crying?"
She froze. "No, baby. Just tired."
"You and Daddy were yelling."
Ivy crouched beside him. "Sometimes grown-ups yell because they're scared."
Leo tilted his head. "Are you scared of the bad man?"
Her breath caught. "What do you mean?"
"I saw him. In my dream. He was in the dark."
Ivy's hands went cold. "What else did you see?"
Leo frowned, focused. "He said my name."
Later That Day — Conference Room
Maddie slammed the file on the table. "I found something. Vincent has an offshore account—connected to a psychiatric facility in Romania."
Aiden flipped through it. "Used for what?"
"Funding memory suppression trials. Illegal ones. Experimental drugs. Behavioral rewiring."
Ivy paled. "He wasn't just trying to silence us. He was trying to rewrite us."
Aiden nodded. "And now that we remember, he's afraid."
Maddie added, "There's a former patient who escaped and went underground in Europe. She might talk—for a price."
Ivy looked up. "Then we pay it."
Evening — Rooftop of the Safehouse
Ivy and Aiden stood in silence, city lights flickering below.
"You know what this means, right?" he asked.
"That the man who controlled us is still three steps ahead?"
"That he's desperate."
She turned to him. "What if we put Leo in protective custody?"
His head whipped toward her. "No."
"It's not weakness."
"It's abandonment. And he'll know. Just like you did."
She stared at him, stunned.
"Because I left you," he said quietly. "And I've hated myself for it every damn day."
"I was alone, Aiden."
"I know. I wanted to come back. Every time I tried, he threatened to hurt you."
Her voice trembled. "You didn't even know about Leo."
"No. But I knew about you. And that was enough to make me weak."
She touched his face. "You're not weak. You stayed alive. And that saved us both."
Later That Night — Safehouse Bedroom
Ivy lay beside Aiden in bed, staring at the ceiling. He was asleep, one arm around her, one twitching with dreams.
She couldn't sleep.
Her thoughts kept drifting to Leo's dream, to Vincent's words, to the flickering footage Maddie had recovered from Vincent's hacked servers—especially one video labeled Project OMEGA: Child Variant Alpha.
The child in the video looked eerily like Leo.
She crept from bed, heart pounding.
Secure Basement — Maddie's Tech Lab
Ivy pulled up the video again. Enhanced it. Ran it through facial recognition software Maddie had installed.
Confirmed.
It was Leo.
In a facility. Attached to monitors. Eyes closed. A voice off-screen asking, "Can you hear me, Leo?"
Her knees buckled.
She had no memory of this.