The night after Damian saw Ezra for the first time, Reina dreamt of fire.
Not the roaring, orange kind, but cold fire—glass shattering across black asphalt, headlights spinning in the dark, her own reflection fractured into a hundred tiny shards. The echo of a scream that might have been hers.
She jolted awake before dawn, her breath catching in her throat. Ezra was still asleep in the next room, his soft little snores steady and warm through the thin walls. The air in her apartment felt heavier than usual, pressing down on her like the moments before a storm.
Reina rubbed her temples, trying to push the fragments of the nightmare away. They weren't memories—she told herself that every time they came. They were just tricks of the mind, figments born from the blank space in her past.
But Damian's face kept bleeding into them now. His eyes when Ezra spoke. That thin, controlled tone—We'll talk soon.
She got up, padded barefoot to the kitchen, and poured herself black coffee she didn't even want. Her hands curled around the mug, absorbing the heat.
Three years. She had stayed one step ahead of questions for three years. And all it took was a few words from a three-year-old to make the ground feel like it was tilting beneath her.
---
That evening, she had a decision to make.
She could do what she'd planned all along—slip quietly out of the job Damian had given her before he got too curious. Or she could risk everything and keep going, dig deeper into his world while his guard was still somewhere between suspicion and denial.
She chose the latter.
By nine o'clock, Ezra was asleep, curled into the blanket fort they'd made together in his room. Reina kissed his forehead, made sure the nightlight was on, and grabbed her small black satchel.
She told herself she was just going to organize files for work. That it was harmless. That she wasn't breaking any rules she couldn't talk her way out of.
But she knew exactly which files she wanted to see.
---
Damian's office in the Stone Industries tower was quiet after hours, the hum of the city outside softened by thick glass walls. The elevator ride up felt longer than usual, the kind of silence where your own heartbeat becomes annoyingly loud.
She'd already swiped her keycard before she realized how easy this was. Too easy.
The desk light was still on. A half-drunk glass of whiskey sat beside his computer, faint amber catching the light. But no Damian.
"Lucky me," she murmured under her breath.
She crossed to the desk, slipping on a pair of thin gloves. The main drive was locked behind an eight-digit password—nothing she couldn't bypass after years in private investigations.
It took her six minutes to get in. And when she did, she froze.
The folder names were sterile—PROJECT BLUE, CLIENT VERTEX, MERGER 0812—but tucked between them was a single word in all caps: SABRINA.
Her pulse thudded in her ears.
She clicked it.
Inside were photos. Hundreds of them. Not digital downloads, not cropped copies—these were scans of physical prints, the kind of photos you kept in albums.
There she was, in a white dress on a sunlit balcony. In a kitchen with flour on her cheek. On a beach, holding a bouquet of shells. Her own face—hers, but not the version she saw in the mirror now—looked back at her, smiling, unguarded.
It was like staring into the life of a stranger who shared her bones.
And yet, the stranger was her.
Reina's throat tightened. She had expected to find business leverage, something to use against him if things turned ugly. Not… this.
She scrolled further and found documents. A death certificate. Accident reports. Medical files. Every official page declared Sabrina Stone—her previous self—dead and buried.
But here he was, keeping her alive on his hard drive.
"Why, Damian?" she whispered. "Why keep these?"
---
A faint sound behind her made her spin.
It wasn't Damian. It was her reflection in the glass wall—and beyond it, a dark figure leaning casually in the doorway.
Lucien Stone.
His mouth curved, though the smile never reached his eyes. "Funny thing about unlocked doors," he said, stepping inside. "You never know who you'll find behind them."
Reina forced her hands to still on the desk. "You following me now?"
"Let's call it… keeping an eye on an interesting new hire." He glanced at the monitor. "Or should I say—an old acquaintance?"
She shut the folder with a sharp click. "I don't know what you think you see."
"Oh, I see plenty," he murmured, circling the desk until he was close enough that she could smell the faint spice of his cologne. "You're not who you say you are. And that little boy of yours? He's not just any kid."
Ice slid down her spine. "Leave him out of this."
Lucien's eyes glittered. "Can't. Because if you want him safe, you're going to do exactly what I say."
Her jaw tightened. "And that would be?"
He smiled then, slow and deliberate. "Spy on Damian for me. Every meeting, every document, every secret he thinks is safe—you bring it to me. Or Ezra won't live to see five."
Reina's nails bit into her palms. She had dealt with dangerous men before, but Lucien was different. He didn't bluff. He didn't threaten unless he meant to follow through.
"And if I say no?" she asked.
His smile widened. "Then I stop asking."
---
She walked out of that office with her heartbeat pounding against her ribs.
She told herself she wouldn't do it—not for him, not for anyone—but Ezra's face kept flashing in her mind. The way he looked at her when he was scared. The way his little hand fit inside hers.
Reina had survived three years by being ruthless when she had to be. And if she had to play a dangerous game between two brothers to keep her son alive, she would.
But she wasn't going to be anyone's pawn.
Lucien might think he'd trapped her, but the trap had two sets of teeth.
And she planned to make him bleed first.
---
At the same moment, across the city, Damian stood at his penthouse window with a phone in his hand.
"Get me everything you can on Reina Blake," he told his head of security. "Everything. I don't care if you have to pull sealed records. I want it yesterday."
"Yes, sir."
He ended the call and stared at the skyline, his mind running over the puzzle again and again.
Her eyes.The way she flinched when he got too close—not like a stranger wary of a man's attention, but like someone who remembered.
If she was Sabrina, then why the hell was she pretending otherwise? And who was the boy to her—no, to them?
Damian poured another drink, but the whiskey tasted flat in his mouth.
One way or another, he was going to get the truth.
Even if it meant tearing down the walls she'd built around herself.
---
That night, neither of them slept.
She lay awake, her mind mapping out escape routes and contingencies.
He sat in his study, staring at her face on a screen, trying to decide if the dead could
come back.
And somewhere in the dark, Lucien smiled to himself.
Because whether they knew it or not, they were already caught in his game.