His name was an open wound.One that wouldn’t heal, no matter how I treated it.
The past few weeks without him had been a slow kind of torture.Quiet.Lingering.The kind that didn’t scream, but hollowed you out piece by piece until there was nothing left but absence.
I’d told myself it was temporary.That eventually, Raze would cool off.That time would do what time always did—soften edges, blur lines, make the impossible feel manageable again.
I’d held onto that hope.Clung to it in the quiet moments like it was my only salvation.
Because somewhere, buried deep beneath pride and anger and everything that had come between us, I believed we’d find our way back.
We felt unfinished.Like something cut short before it had the chance to become what it was meant to be.
And now—my hand drifted to my stomach.Careful.Protective.Now there was something more tying us together forever.Something undeniable.Ours.
A future I hadn’t planned, hadn’t expected—but one I already knew I wouldn’t give up.Not for anyone.Not even to save myself.
My fingers pressed a little firmer against my abdomen, grounding me.
If I jumped—that was it for me.For the life growing inside me.
The thought fractured something in my chest.Because for a split second—I’d almost chosen the easy way out.Let the sea take me instead of the devil standing a few feet away.Let it end before it could become a living nightmare.
My gaze lifted, scanning the endless stretch of water ahead, toward the island in the distance.
And the terrifying certainty that every second this boat moved forward, I was being pulled further away from everything I’d ever known.
Further away from the life I was supposed to have.
My throat tightened, something thick and painful building behind it.
Because I knew that if Machado succeeded in getting me onto that plane…I might never make it back.
I’d never see Raze again.
Never hear Gianni’s stupid commentary or Atlas’s quiet authority.
I’d never stand in a room with Archie and feel that charged, dangerous pull between us again.
Never—
My breath hitched.
No.
I clenched my jaw, forcing the thought down before it could consume me.I wasn’t done yet.
I dragged my hand away from the railing, fingers curling into a fist at my side.Because as easy as it would be to step forward—to let the sea take me—I couldn’t.I wouldn’t.Not when I had something worth living for.
Them.Him.Us.
Even if it was fractured and it felt like it had been ripped out of my hands—it wasn’t gone until I was gone.
Hope lingered.Stubborn and unreasonable.But it was there nonetheless.
I swallowed hard, lifting my chin as the wind whipped against my face, drying the threat of tears before they could fall.
I wanted this baby.I wanted to live long enough to meet him or her.To hold my child in my arms and look down at it’s little face and check off all the features it got from me, and those from Archie.
I desperately wanted to see what came from something that had felt so inevitable, even when everything else had been chaos.