And I’d built my entire life on certainty.
I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes. For the first time in longer than I could remember, I let myself feel the weight of something I couldn’t control.
The waiting was going to be harder than I’d anticipated.
Much harder.
I tried to work.
Sat at my desk with inventory reports from the jewelry store spread out in front of me—sales figures, gemstone orders, custom design requests. Numbers that usually grounded me. Made sense in a way nothing else did.
Then the construction contracts for Landry Enterprises. Three new developments in the Warehouse District. Permits approved. Financing secured. Everything moving forward exactly as planned.
Control.
That’s what these papers represented.
But my mind kept drifting back to Dr. Beaumont’s voice.Ten embryos developing normally. We’ll monitor for five days.
Five days.
I forced myself to focus on the contracts. Read the same paragraph three times without absorbing a single word.
I decided to take my black ass home. There’s no way I’d get anything else done after talking to Dr. Beaumont.
The drive home was quick. I parked and went inside to try and rest.
Then I heard it.
A scream.
Raw. Primal. The kind of sound that bypasses your brain and goes straight to your spine.
Syx.
I was moving before I consciously decided to move.
Yanked my gun out of the holster. The weight of it familiar and grounding in my hand.
Took the stairs two at a time.
The screaming didn’t stop.
It got worse.
Louder. More desperate. The sound of someone drowning in air.
I hit the second-floor hallway at a dead run and kicked open Syx’s door.
The room was dark except for the streetlight bleeding through the curtains. But I could see him.
Thrashing in the bed like something was holding him down. His body arcing off the mattress. Hands clawing at invisible weight pressing on his chest.
“No-no?Mama?—”
His voice cracked on the word.
Broke into something that wasn’t quite a scream and wasn’t quite a sob.
