The call came while Caspian was in a sterile conference room, reviewing a preliminary dossier on Isolde with Marcus Thorne. The phone buzzed, the screen flashing with the hospital’s main number. His heart seized with a familiar, conditioned panic.

Then he remembered. It was all a performance.

He answered, his voice carefully pitched with alarm. He listened, feigned shock, and promised to be there in ten minutes. He hung up and looked at Marcus, the head of Hawthorne Security.

“Phase two of her plan is in motion,” Caspian said, his voice flat and devoid of the emotion he had just performed. “She’s been ‘attacked.’”

The drive to St. Jude’s was a blur of calculated moves. He ran a red light. He screeched to a halt at the curb, leaving the car door open. He shouldered his way through the media circus, his face a perfect mask of grim fury and concern. He played the part he knew they expected. The part he had played for a year.

The worried fiancé. The protector.

He found Isolde in her room, a doctor fussing over her while she gave a tearful, breathless account to two police officers. Caspian rushed to her side, taking her hand. “Isolde. My God. Are you alright?”

“Caspian,” she sobbed, collapsing against him. “It was horrible. This man… he came out of nowhere. He had this wild look in his eyes. He screamed her name—Lyra’s name—and he just… he pushed me.”

Caspian held her, murmuring soothing words, his mind a cold, silent vault of observation. He was no longer the audience for this play. He was the critic.

*Inconsistency one,* he noted. She claimed the man pushed her from behind, but the first photo already circulating online showed her turning towards him, her eyes wide, a moment before she fell.

“He shoved me so hard,” she went on, dabbing at her eyes. “I think I sprained my wrist when I landed.” She held up her left wrist for inspection, wincing dramatically.

*Inconsistency two.* A moment before, she had been gesturing emphatically with that same hand while describing the attacker’s face. There was no sign of pain. No tenderness.

He listened as she embellished the story for the police, adding details about the man’s menacing glare, the terror she felt for her life. The man he was a week ago would have been consumed by a storm of disbelief and rage. He would be hunting down this “fan,” ready to ruin him, to protect Isolde from a world that didn’t understand their love.

The man he was today felt nothing but a profound, chilling certainty. The lie was so insultingly obvious. It wasn’t designed to be scrutinized; it was designed to be broadcast. A spectacle of victimhood for mass consumption.

He had been the primary consumer for so long.

“I’ll handle this,” he told her, his voice low and promising vengeance. He kissed her forehead, the gesture feeling alien and repulsive. “I’ll make sure you’re safe.”

He stepped outside the room as the police were finishing their report. He saw the headlines on a nearby television. He saw the immediate, vicious turn against Lyra.

This wasn’t just about controlling him anymore. This was a direct attack, designed to endanger Lyra, to make her a pariah.

He realized then what he had to do. Her story was built for the cameras that were present. The only way to dismantle it was to see what wasn’t meant to be seen.

He needed the hospital’s security footage. And he would get it tonight.

The television was a low murmur in the background of Zara’s apartment, another talking head dissecting the Hawthorne drama. Lyra traced the rim of her mug of herbal tea, trying to breathe through the knot of anxiety in her chest. Every headline, every speculative comment, felt like a small, sharp stone hurled directly at her.

“You need to stop watching this,” Zara said, her voice firm as she took the remote and muted the screen. “It’s poison.”

“I know, but I feel like I have to,” Lyra murmured. “If I don’t know what they’re saying, how can I fight it?”

“You fight it on stage at `Starlight Serenade`. You fight it by taking care of yourself and this baby.” Zara placed a hand on Lyra’s arm, a small point of warmth and stability in the churning chaos. “Let the world be noisy. In here, we’re going to be quiet.”

Lyra managed a weak smile, but before she could reply, the television screen flared to life with a “BREAKING NEWS” banner. The sound came back on, loud and frantic.

“We are coming to you live from outside St. Jude’s Medical Center,” a reporter said, her voice strained over the sounds of shouting and sirens, “where Isolde Finch, fiancée of billionaire Caspian Hawthorne, has just been attacked.”

Lyra’s blood ran cold. She and Zara stared, frozen, at the chaotic footage. Paparazzi cameras flashed like strobes, illuminating a scene of pure pandemonium. Security guards were pinning a man to the ground. Isolde was on the pavement, being helped to her feet by a frantic-looking nurse, her face a mask of terror.

“Witnesses say the assailant, who appears to be a supporter of Lyra Hawthorne, shoved Ms. Finch to the ground while screaming the singer’s name,” the reporter continued, her voice breathless with the scoop.

“No,” Lyra whispered. “No, that’s not possible.”

Zara leaned closer to the screen, her expression hardening into one of deep, immediate suspicion. “Look at that fall, Lyra. It’s theatrical. And how convenient that every camera in the city was right there to capture it.”

But Lyra could barely hear her. All she could see was the news ticker scrolling relentlessly across the bottom of the screen: LYRA HAWTHORNE FAN ATTACKS AILING ISOLDE FINCH.

The words slammed into her with physical force. It was a lie. It had to be a lie. But it was a perfect, venomous lie, designed to destroy everything she had clawed back for herself. The public sympathy, the support from `Starlight Serenade`, the fragile sense of safety she had built—all of it was turning to ash.

A sharp, cramping pain sliced through her abdomen.

She gasped, her hand flying to her stomach. The fear for her baby, a constant, dull ache, sharpened into sheer panic. The stress. The doctors had warned her about the stress.

“Zara,” she choked out, her vision tunneling.

“I’m here,” Zara said instantly, her focus shifting from the screen to Lyra’s pale face. She guided Lyra to the sofa, her movements calm and professional despite the fury in her eyes. “Breathe with me, Lyra. Deep breaths. It’s a setup. A disgusting, transparent setup, and we will fight it.”

On the television, Isolde was being carefully guided back into the hospital, playing the part of the fragile victim to perfection. The narrative had flipped in an instant. The public wouldn’t see a setup. They would see a sick woman, assaulted.

And they would see Lyra as the monster who inspired it.

The blue light of the tablet painted Isolde Finch’s face in a sickly, artificial glow. Her hospital room was a cage of quiet luxury, but the silence was no longer peaceful. It was the sound of absence. Caspian’s absence.

He hadn’t been here in hours. A curt text message was all she’d received. *Meeting. Urgent.*

She scrolled through the news feeds, her thumb swiping with sharp, angry movements. Lyra’s pregnancy reveal had dominated the cycle for days. The initial shock had given way to a messy, divided public. Some called Lyra a manipulative homewrecker. But others, far too many others, saw a tragic heroine. A woman betrayed, fighting for her unborn child.

Sympathy. They were giving Lyra sympathy.

Isolde’s grip on the tablet tightened. It wasn’t enough. The narrative was slipping, twisting into something she couldn’t control. She had painted Lyra as barren and cold, a lie Caspian had swallowed whole. Now, that foundational lie was exposed, and with it, the first real crack in his devotion had appeared.

He looked at her differently now. The blind adoration was gone, replaced by a cool, watchful distance. He was asking questions she couldn’t answer, remembering things she’d hoped he’d forgotten.

Another lie wouldn’t fix this. Not a simple one. It had to be bigger. More visceral.

She needed to be the victim again. Not a victim of circumstance or a broken heart. A physical victim. The public, and more importantly Caspian, had to be so horrified on her behalf that all suspicion would be incinerated in a blaze of protective fury.

The risk was enormous. But the alternative—losing him completely—was unthinkable. Desperation was a potent fuel. It burned away caution, leaving only the grim necessity of action.

She closed the news app and swiped to her contacts, selecting a number with no name attached. The burner phone felt cold and illicit in her hand. She pressed it to her ear, her heart hammering against her ribs.

It was answered on the second ring. A low, gravelly voice. “Yes?”

“It’s time,” Isolde said, her own voice a low whisper. “The plan we discussed. The final contingency.”

There was a pause on the other end. “Are you sure? This is a different level.”

“I am sure,” she snapped, the words sharp with finality. “Tomorrow morning. When I leave for the Finch Foundation photo op. The entrance will be swarmed with press. That’s the stage.”

She gave the instructions with chilling precision. A shove. A fall. Not enough to cause real harm, but enough to look brutal on camera. He was to disguise himself, something nondescript, but his words had to be clear.

“You will scream her name,” Isolde commanded. “Make them hear it. ‘This is for Lyra.’ Something like that. Make it undeniable.”

“Security will be on me in a second.”

“That’s the point,” she said. “They tackle you, you struggle, the cameras capture it all. You’ll be a deranged fan, and I’ll be the dying woman attacked in her name.”

A long silence stretched. She could hear his breathing, the faint sound of traffic in his background.

“The payment will be doubled,” she added, the final lever.

“I’ll be there,” he said. The line went dead.

Isolde lowered the phone, her knuckles white. A wave of terror washed over her, so potent it made her dizzy. She had just set in motion a criminal conspiracy. A public, violent, and irreversible act.

But then, a grim smile touched her lips. The terror receded, replaced by the cold, exhilarating thrill of a gambler pushing all her chips to the center of the table. Let them feel sympathy for Lyra now. By tomorrow, they would be calling for her blood.

And Caspian would come running back to save her. He always did.

Isolde received the text from her associate just before dawn. *Confrontation happened. He knows.*

She didn’t rage. She didn’t break anything else. The time for emotional outbursts was over. She had lost Caspian for good. The game had changed.

Her strategy pivoted instantly from manipulation to preemptive attack. Her goal was no longer to keep the man, but to destroy the woman who had taken him, and to save herself in the process.

“We need to frame her,” she said into her phone, her voice a low, menacing whisper. “Something to make her look unstable. Violent. A deranged fan, perhaps? One of her little ‘ghosts’ who takes things too far. Plant the seed. Make it believable.”

She was no longer playing for love. She was playing for survival.

Across town, in the quiet sanctuary of Zara’s apartment, Lyra was awake. The sun streamed through the window, but she felt none of its warmth. Zara sat beside her on the sofa, a steaming mug of tea in her hands.

“You should quit the show, Lyra,” Zara said gently. “You’ve told your truth. Now you need to disappear. Go somewhere quiet. Protect yourself. Protect the baby.”

Lyra shook her head, a small but firm gesture. “No.”

“Why not?” Zara pressed, her concern evident. “What’s left to prove?”

“It’s not about proving anything anymore,” Lyra explained, her gaze fixed on the dust motes dancing in the sunlight. “For the first time in my life, I have a voice. A real one. That stage… it’s the only platform I have to control my own story. If I run now, they’ll write the ending for me.”

Her music was her only weapon. And her only shield.

The battle lines were redrawn.

In a black town car idling in a sterile corporate parking garage, Caspian reviewed the first encrypted file from his investigator. It was a list of shell corporations, all linked to a single charitable entity: `The Finch Foundation`. His grief and shame had crystallized into a singular, cold purpose.

In a sunlit room filled with the scent of tea and lemon, Lyra picked up her guitar. Her fingers found the strings, and she wrote a new lyric. It wasn’t a song about heartbreak.

It was about a cage made of lies, and the woman who was finally learning how to break the bars.

They were fighting the same war now, from different fronts, entirely unaware of the other’s campaign.

Caspian drove through the city night, aimless and hollow. The neon lights of the metropolis blurred into meaningless streaks of color. His mind was a chaotic highlight reel of his time with Isolde, but every memory was now re-contextualized through the horrifying lens of the truth.

Her brave smiles now looked like triumphant smirks.

Her vulnerable tears now seemed reptilian, shed for effect.

He remembered specific comments, dropped like poison into casual conversation. *“She never seemed to want a family, did she?”* she’d asked one night, her head on his shoulder. *“It’s a shame. She’s so emotionally distant. It must be hard for you.”*

He saw them now for what they were: not observations, but calculated seeds of doubt. Each one was a small, precise incision meant to bleed his marriage dry. He had let her do it. He had welcomed it.

He wrenched the car to the side of the road, the screech of the tires a faint echo of the scream trapped in his chest. He pulled out his phone, his hands shaking, and scrolled to a single name: `Eleanora Hawthorne`.

His thumb hovered over the call button. He desperately wanted to confess, to hear his grandmother’s sharp, unwavering wisdom. To seek guidance from the one person whose moral compass he had always trusted.

But the shame was a physical weight, pressing down on him, suffocating him. He had failed her so completely. He couldn’t bear to hear the disappointment in her voice again, not now that he knew just how right she had been. He couldn’t admit the depth of his foolishness. Not yet.

He closed the contact list.

A moment later, he opened it again. His finger scrolled past the familiar names to a different kind of contact. Marcus Thorne. Head of Corporate Security for `Hawthorne Industries`. A man whose loyalty was to the family, not to any single member, and whose discretion was legendary.

He made the call. When Thorne answered, Caspian’s voice was a ghost of its former self. It was cold, flat, and devoid of all emotion.

“Marcus,” he said, skipping all pleasantries. “I need a full, deep-background investigation run on Isolde Finch. Everything. Financials, associates, medical history. I want to know who she’s spoken to for the past year. Use any resources necessary.”

He paused, his knuckles white as he gripped the steering wheel.

“And it stays off the books. No one knows.”

Caspian stood in the middle of the soundproofed room, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. The door opened. Lyra entered, her face pale but composed. Zara followed like a shadow, stopping just outside the doorway, her arms crossed, a silent and vigilant guardian.

This was the first time they had been alone since the day he had demanded a divorce, his voice cool and distant as he spoke of his duty to a dying Isolde.

Caspian’s first words were raw, desperate to find an escape hatch from his own guilt. “Is it mine?”

The question hung in the air, a final, pathetic grasp at a reality where he was not the monster. Where this was somehow her deception, not Isolde’s.

Lyra didn’t flinch. Her gaze, once full of adoration, was now as cool and clear as glass. She looked at him, truly looked at him, and saw only a stranger.

“Yes,” she said, her voice flat. She laid out the facts with cold precision, a timeline he couldn’t refute. “It was the night you got back from the Chicago conference. The last week of April. Weeks before you ever mentioned her name. Weeks before you told me our marriage was over.”

The ironclad logic of the dates buckled his knees. The anger, the denial—it all crumbled into dust, leaving only a vast, hollow cavern of shame. He finally voiced the core of his humiliation, the poisoned lie that had allowed all the others to take root.

“She told me,” he choked out, the words tasting like ash. “She said you couldn’t. That we tried and you were…” He couldn’t finish the sentence. He couldn’t say the word *barren*.

Lyra’s expression softened, not with affection, but with a weary, distant pity. It was worse than hatred.

“And you believed her,” she stated. It was not a question.

That was the moment that shattered him. The realization that Isolde hadn’t just lied about her health or a one-time hospital visit. She had meticulously, patiently, and intimately poisoned him against his own wife. She had taken their private struggles, their quiet heartbreaks, and twisted them into a weapon to assassinate Lyra’s character. And he had held the weapon for her. He had thanked her for it.

He took a stumbling step forward, his hand outstretched in a desperate, pleading gesture. A plea for what, he didn’t know. Forgiveness? A rewind of time?

“Lyra, I’m so sorry…”

For the first time, she reacted. She flinched. A small, almost imperceptible recoil, but it was as definitive as a door slamming shut in his face. She shrank from his touch as if from a hot flame.

The physical rejection was more powerful than any verbal rebuke. It was the final, undeniable proof that the woman he once knew was gone forever. The man she had once loved was a ghost, and the man standing before her now was a stranger she could not, and would not, ever trust again.

He dropped his hand. There was nothing left to say.

He turned and walked out of the room, utterly broken. The confrontation had given him the confirmation he sought, but it had also stripped him of his last defense. He was not a savior. He was a tormentor.

The moment the door closed, Lyra’s composure fractured. A ragged sob escaped her lips, and she collapsed into Zara’s waiting arms.

The television studio was under siege. By the time Caspian’s car screeched to a halt near the entrance, a frantic circus of paparazzi and news vans had already descended, their camera flashes strobing like a lightning storm in the night. The news of a Hawthorne heir had traveled fast.

He shoved his way out of the car, his face a thunderous mask. The crowd surged toward him, microphones and lenses thrust in his face.

“Caspian, is it true?”

“Did you know she was pregnant?”

“Are you the father, Mr. Hawthorne?”

Their questions were barbs, each one twisting the knife of his shame. He was the villain of the story, the cheating husband arriving at the scene of the crime. He pushed through the bodies, his raw fury fueling the media frenzy, until a line of studio security blocked his path.

“Sir, you can’t come through here.”

Blocked. Trapped on the outside. He pulled out his phone, his thumb jabbing Zara Ali’s name. It rang twice before she answered.

“What do you want, Caspian?” Her voice was ice.

“Let me speak to her,” he demanded, his tone still laced with the arrogance of a man used to getting his way. “I need to see her. Now.”

“Absolutely not,” Zara shot back, her voice low and fierce. He could hear the muffled chaos of the backstage area behind her. “She is in no condition to speak with the man who publicly vilified her. The stress you’re causing could be dangerous for the baby. Have you even considered that?”

Lyra heard Zara’s side of the conversation. She was sitting in a small, sterile office, a bottle of water trembling in her hand. Every instinct screamed at her to let Zara hang up, to retreat into the safety her friend was so desperately trying to build around her.

But this was different. This wasn’t about him anymore. It was about her.

“Zara,” she said, her voice quiet but firm. “Let me have the phone.”

Zara’s eyes were filled with protest. “Lyra, no. You don’t owe him anything.”

“I know,” Lyra said. “This isn’t for him.”

She took the phone, her fingers cool against the plastic. She listened for a moment to Caspian’s impatient breathing on the other end.

“Five minutes,” she said, her voice devoid of its old warmth. It was the voice of a stranger. “There’s an empty green room on the third floor. Security can bring you. No one else.”

She was setting the terms. This was a final transaction, a severing.

Against Zara’s strenuous objections, a tense, temporary truce was established. Caspian, seething under the glares of the paparazzi he was forced to leave behind, was escorted by two grim-faced guards through a labyrinth of corridors. They led him to a small, windowless room and left him there, the click of the closing door echoing in the suffocating silence. He stood alone in the sterile space, the air thick with the anticipation of a reckoning he had never seen coming.

The moment the cameras went dark, chaos erupted backstage. Zara pushed through the stunned crew, reaching Lyra just as her legs gave out. She caught her, shielding her from the disbelieving stares of producers and stagehands.

The adrenaline that had held Lyra together evaporated, and she finally broke. Sobs tore through her, a raw, ragged release of weeks of terror and pressure. She clung to Zara, her body shaking uncontrollably. The truth was out. She was free, and she was more exposed than ever before.

***

In a cheap motel room on the edge of the city, Caspian Hawthorne stared at the frozen image of Lyra’s face on his laptop before the screen went to black.

The words echoed in the stale, quiet air.

*…still pregnant with Caspian Hawthorne’s child.*

He physically staggered back, his legs hitting a cheap wooden chair and sending it crashing to the floor. His mind reeled, a maelstrom of shock and dawning horror.

Pregnant.

Still pregnant.

Every lie Isolde had ever told him about Lyra incinerated in that single, white-hot instant. *She’s cold, Caspian. She doesn’t want a family. She told me she was barren.*

Lies. All of it.

He had divorced a woman carrying his child. He had publicly vilified her, stood by while she was slandered, all for a woman who had built their entire relationship on a foundation of poison and deceit.

The last sliver of doubt didn’t just crack; it was annihilated. It was replaced by a horrifying, gut-wrenching certainty that left him gasping for air. This was his point of no return.

***

In her immaculate room at St. Jude’s Medical Center, surrounded by bouquets of funereal flowers, Isolde Finch watched the broadcast on a large, wall-mounted television.

Her serene mask of victimhood did not just crack. It shattered into a thousand pieces.

Her face twisted into a mask of pure, undiluted rage. When the screen cut to the car commercial, she let out a guttural scream. She grabbed the nearest object—a heavy glass of water—and hurled it at the screen. The glass exploded, showering the floor in glittering shards as the television fizzled and died.

Her perfect plan. Her flawless, vicious, beautiful plan.

It had not only failed. It had backfired in the most spectacular, catastrophic way imaginable. She hadn’t just lost the narrative. She had handed Lyra the one weapon that could destroy her completely.

She had lost control.

***

Online, the world pivoted in a fraction of a second.

The #JusticeForCaspian hashtag was instantly drowned under a tsunami of new, frantic speculation. #HawthorneHeir. #LyraPregnant. #StarlightBombshell.

The story was no longer about a spiteful abortion. It was about a secret heir. A child conceived before the divorce. A child whose existence rewrote the entire sordid history of the Hawthorne separation.

The power dynamic had been completely, irrevocably inverted.

Lyra, sobbing in Zara’s arms, was vulnerable, exhausted, and terrified. But she now held the moral high ground with a truth so shocking it could not be spun.

Caspian, reeling in his motel room, was now armed with the absolute emotional conviction he needed to tear Isolde’s world apart.

And Isolde, screaming in her hospital room, was no longer a puppet master. She was a caged animal. And a cornered animal is the most dangerous of all.

The night of the live broadcast, the air in the studio crackled with a tension thicker than stage smoke. The audience buzzed, a restless sea of faces hungry for drama. They weren’t here for a song. They were here for a confession.

When Lyra’s name was called, she walked out from the wings alone. There was no guitar slung over her shoulder, no piano waiting for her. Just a single microphone standing center stage.

She looked pale under the harsh lights, but her eyes were like steel. As she walked, a wave of sound washed over her—a chaotic mix of hushed murmurs, sympathetic applause, and scattered, ugly boos.

The host, a man with a practiced, compassionate smile, met her at the microphone.

“Lyra,” he said, his voice resonating through the silent theater. “There’s been a lot of speculation this week. The producers have allowed you this time. Is there anything you’d like to say?”

Lyra nodded once. She didn’t look at him. She didn’t look at the judges or the audience. She turned her face directly to the main camera, the one broadcasting her image into millions of homes across the nation.

She knew Caspian would be watching. She knew Isolde would be watching.

Her voice, when she spoke, was quiet but carried an undeniable weight. It cut through the ambient noise, commanding absolute silence.

“There are stories going around about a choice I supposedly made,” she began, her hands gripping the microphone stand. “About a hospital visit. And I need to tell you the truth.”

A ripple of anticipation went through the crowd. This was it.

Lyra took a steadying breath. “The story that I had an abortion to hurt my ex-husband is a lie.”

A sudden burst of noise erupted from the audience—gasps, shouts, applause. The host held up a hand for silence. The cameras remained fixed on Lyra’s face.

She paused, letting the denial hang in the air, letting it land. Then, she prepared for the final blow. The truth that would change everything.

Her voice trembled, but it did not break. She placed a hand protectively over her stomach, a gesture both subconscious and deliberate.

“It’s a lie because I couldn’t have.”

She took one last, deep, shaky breath, and delivered the words that would detonate the world.

“I didn’t have an abortion… because I am still pregnant with Caspian Hawthorne’s child.”

Absolute, profound, stunned silence.

The entire theater, the crew backstage, the judges at their table—everyone froze. The air solidified. For a single, stretched-out second, the only sound was the hum of the studio lights.

Then, the silence shattered. A collective gasp, an explosion of chaotic noise as ten thousand minds processed the impossible. Shouts. Screams. The host’s jaw was slack, his professional composure utterly broken.

Back in the control room, a producer screamed, “Cut! Cut to commercial, now!”

The broadcast feed abruptly switched to a car commercial, but the last image sent across the country was Lyra’s face. A portrait of raw terror, and a small, shining glimmer of relief.

The bomb had been dropped.

The call came late in the afternoon. Zara answered, her voice clipped and professional, before passing the phone to Lyra.

“It’s Marcus Thorne,” she whispered. “From `Starlight Serenade`.”

Lyra’s hand trembled as she took the phone. His voice was sympathetic, but the words were steel.

“Lyra, I’m sorry for what you’re going through,” he began, dispensing with pleasantries. “But the controversy is too big to ignore. The network, the sponsors… we’re under immense pressure.”

He laid out the ultimatum. It was cold and simple.

“You have two options,” he said. “You can withdraw from the competition, effective immediately. We’ll release a statement citing personal reasons. Or, you can use your performance slot on the next live show to address the situation.”

Lyra’s throat went dry. “Address it how?”

“Frankly, we don’t care what you say. But you have to say something. Silence is not an option anymore.”

He gave her until morning to decide. The call ended, leaving a dead, echoing silence in the room.

Zara began pacing, her mind racing through the logical paths. “We can issue a legal denial through a lawyer. It’s the standard move.”

“Too slow,” Lyra whispered. “The lie will be truth by then.”

“A press release? A written statement?”

“Too weak. It will get lost in the noise.”

“Then you withdraw,” Zara said firmly, her eyes pleading. “You walk away. Protect your health. Protect the baby. Nothing else matters.”

Lyra looked around the apartment, at the drawn blinds, at the flashes of paparazzi cameras filtering through the cracks. Hiding. It was the sensible choice. The safe choice.

But her own words from that last interview echoed in her mind. *I left to protect my own well-being.*

She realized with chilling clarity that her well-being was no longer just her own. It was tied to the tiny, fragile life inside her. A life that Isolde was now trying to define with a monstrous lie before it had even begun.

Hiding would mean letting Isolde win. It would mean this scandal, this accusation, would become the first chapter of her child’s story.

No. She would not allow that.

Her fear began to curdle, hardening into a defiant resolve. She had been a victim for too long. Reacting. Enduring. Surviving.

It was time to fight.

She looked at Zara, her gaze clear and steady for the first time in days. A terrifying decision had taken root in her heart.

“I’m not withdrawing,” she said, her voice quiet but firm.

“Lyra…”

“And I’m not issuing a statement.”

She stood up, the blanket falling away. She felt a strange, cold calm settle over her. They had given her an ultimatum. They had given her a stage. They had given her a national audience.

She would use it. She would turn their weapon back on them.

A fierce, protective fire ignited in her chest. It was the most terrifying choice she had ever made. It was the only choice she had left.

“She wants to talk about my child,” Lyra said, her voice ringing with a newfound strength that startled even herself. “Fine.”

“Let’s talk about my child.”