[Adrian’s POV]

Lisette finds me three days after the ruling.

I’m leaving a coffee shop near the apartment, savoring a rare moment of solitude and the unfamiliar lightness of victory. The winter air feels different today—crisp and clean instead of biting, carrying the promise of new beginnings rather than the threat of endless struggle. For the first time in months, I feel something like peace settling into my bones. The coffee is warm in my hands, the city bustling around me with its usual indifferent energy, and I allow myself to believe, just for a moment, that the worst is behind us.

Then I hear her voice behind me.

“Congratulations, Adrian. You won.”

The words slice through my fragile peace like a scalpel through skin. I turn slowly, my heart rate spiking despite the court order that’s supposed to protect me. The lightness evaporates instantly, replaced by a familiar dread that settles in my stomach like lead, cold and heavy and nauseating. Every nerve in my body fires at once, fight-or-flight instincts screaming warnings I can’t ignore. She’s standing ten feet away, far enough to claim she’s not violating any legal boundaries, close enough for her words to reach me with cutting clarity. She looks immaculate as always—perfectly styled, impeccably dressed—but there’s something feral in her eyes that the court victory hasn’t touched.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I say, keeping my voice steady through sheer force of will. My throat feels tight, constricted, as if her presence alone is choking me. “The court order—”

“Says I can’t contact you or your family. I’m not contacting anyone. I’m simply walking down a public street and making an observation.” Her smile is sharp as a knife, carrying none of the defeat I expected to see. The expression makes my skin crawl, sends ice water trickling down my spine. “Surely even your lawyer can’t object to that.”

I should walk away. Every rational thought tells me to turn my back and leave, to document this encounter and report it to Diana. My legs feel rooted to the sidewalk, frozen by something deeper than logic. But something in her expression holds me—a glitter of malice that suggests she’s not finished, that even in defeat she’s found another weapon. The predator in her hasn’t been defanged; it’s merely been forced to hunt differently.

“What do you want, Lisette?”

“Just to offer my congratulations. And perhaps a question.” She tilts her head, studying me like a specimen she’s preparing to dissect. The clinical assessment in her gaze makes me feel exposed, stripped down to vulnerabilities I thought I’d buried years ago. “Now that you’ve won, now that you’ve proven to the world what a victim you are—are you actually going to raise that baby?”

The question lands like a blow, stealing my breath. The coffee cup nearly slips from suddenly nerveless fingers. Something in my chest constricts painfully, a physical response to emotional warfare I should have anticipated but didn’t. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“I know you, Adrian. Better than anyone. I know that certainty is oxygen to you—that not knowing drives you mad.” She steps closer, just slightly, still maintaining legal distance but closing the emotional gap between us. Her perfume reaches me—the same scent she wore during our marriage—and my stomach turns with remembered intimacy corrupted into weapon. “You can pretend all you want, but the question will eat at you. Every time you look at that baby, wondering if you see yourself in her face. Every time Cassian holds her, wondering if she looks more like him. Every birthday, every milestone, every moment—wondering.”

I turn and walk away before she can see how deeply her words have landed. My hands are shaking, tremors I can’t control despite clenching my fists until my nails bite into my palms. My heart pounds with a fury I can barely contain, blood rushing in my ears so loudly it drowns out the city noise. Each step feels mechanical, forced, my body moving on autopilot while my mind reels from the precision of her attack.

I hear her laughter following me down the street, triumphant despite her legal defeat. The sound echoes in my skull, burrowing deep, settling into the spaces between my thoughts where it will replay for days, for weeks, maybe forever.

She lost the lawsuit.

But standing in the winter cold, her poison spreading through my thoughts like ink through water, darkening everything it touches, I realize she might have found another way to win.