The smell of burnt sugar and cheap cigarettes clung to the air in their cramped apartment. A month had passed since the night that changed everything, and Elena had spent every waking second trying to outrun the shadow of Dante Moretti. She had scrubbed the flour from her nails until they bled, hoping to erase the memory of his touch.
But some stains don't come out with soap.
"Where is it, El? I know you hid the emergency stash!" Leo's voice was jagged, fueled by the manic desperation of a man who had seen a "sure thing" turn into a debt he couldn't breathe under.
Elena stood in the kitchen, her hand instinctively shielding her midsection—a habit she hadn't even realized she'd formed. "It's gone, Leo. I used it to pay the bakery's rent. I told you, we are done with the Morettis. We are done with the debts!"
"You don't understand!" Leo screamed, his face a frantic mask of sweat and terror. "I went back to the Underground. I thought I could win back what we lost. If I don't have ten thousand by midnight, they won't just take the bakery. They'll take my hands!"
"Then let them!" Elena cried, the hatred for his weakness finally boiling over. "I gave my dignity to a monster to save you! I broke a priceless history for you! And you went back?"
The slap of the truth hit harder than a physical blow. Leo's eyes turned dark with a cocktail of shame and rage. He lunged forward, grabbing her shoulders. "Give me the key to the safe, Elena! Now!"
"No!"
In the struggle, Leo's desperation turned into a blind shove. It wasn't meant to be lethal, but the kitchen floor was slick with spilled water. Elena's feet went out from under her. She stumbled back, her head connecting with the sharp corner of the doorframe with a sickening thud.
The world turned into a kaleidoscope of white light and searing pain. Then, total darkness.
"Elena? El, please wake up. God, please..."
The first thing Elena felt was the throb in her temple. The second was the smell of antiseptic and floor wax. She opened her eyes to see the flickering fluorescent lights of a hospital ceiling.
Leo was sitting in a plastic chair by the bed, his head in his hands, shaking. He looked small. Pitiful.
"You... you pushed me," Elena whispered, her voice sounding like it was coming from underwater.
Leo looked up, his eyes bloodshot. "I'm sorry, El. I panicked. You hit the wall so hard... you wouldn't wake up. I didn't know where else to go."
A nurse entered the room, her expression unreadable as she checked the monitors. She looked at Leo, then at Elena, her gaze softening slightly but remaining professional.
"Ms. Rossi, you have a mild concussion," the nurse said, her voice clipped. "We've stitched the laceration on your scalp. But we ran some routine blood work when you were admitted, given your symptoms of nausea and the nature of your fall."
Elena's heart froze. The "problem" she had been nurturing in secret was about to be dragged into the light of a cold hospital room.
"Is she okay?" Leo asked, his voice cracking. "Is my sister going to be fine?"
The nurse looked at the clipboard, then back at Elena. "Your sister is stable. However, the blood tests confirmed something we need to discuss regarding her care and the medications we can prescribe."
She paused, looking directly at Elena. "Ms. Rossi, you are approximately four weeks pregnant."
The silence that followed was heavy enough to crush the lungs. Leo's jaw dropped, his eyes darting from the nurse to Elena's pale face.
"Pregnant?" Leo breathed, the word sounding like a curse. "But... how? You haven't seen anyone. You're always at the bakery."
Then, the realization dawned on him. The color drained from his face until he was as white as the hospital sheets. He remembered the night of the gala. He remembered the way she looked when she came home—haunted, broken, and smelling of sandalwood.
"The Moretti," Leo whispered, his voice trembling with a new kind of terror. "It's his, isn't it? It's the Ghost's baby."
Elena didn't answer. She couldn't. She just turned her face toward the window, watching the Chicago rain streak against the glass. She thought of hiding this child in the shadows, to raise it in a world of flour and books.
But as she looked at her brother's terrified face, she realized the truth: You cannot hide a lion's cub in a bakery. The hunters were already at the door.