"You need to be careful." Cixi’s voice dropped low, and this time the warning carried genuine worry. "You do not want to lose your life."

Only if Rafael would listen.

"If he cared about you that much, he would not have left you alone in the world, pregnant and surrounded by vultures ready to prey on you."

"Some circumstances are not in our hands. Life is unpredictable." Cixi’s retort came fast and sharp. She did not appreciate how Rafael spoke of Cassian, as though he were a coward who had abandoned her. Only if Rafael had been inside that nightclub, he would have witnessed firsthand how Cassian ordered a massacre on the mere one percent chance that Cixi’s claim of being his fiancee held any truth.

No matter how she looked at it, Cassian was fiercely protective of her. And she could not deny that.

The realisation stirred something low in her stomach. A faint, tingling warmth that had nothing to do with the car or the summer. She shifted in her seat and stared hard out the window, refusing to acknowledge the sensation.

Her hand moved unconsciously to her padded stomach. Rafael noticed the gesture from the corner of his eye, though he kept his gaze fixed on the road ahead.

"Are you feeling okay?"

"Yes, I am."

A few seconds of silence passed before Rafael spoke again. "Tomorrow they are taking you to our family hospital for a DNA test."

Cixi’s mood plummeted instantly. The tingling warmth in her stomach curdled into cold, dead weight.

"Yes, I know." Her voice came out flat. Every drop of enthusiasm had been wrung from it.

"You do not sound happy."

"Who would be?" The sarcasm bit harder than she intended, but she did not care enough to soften it. Rafael merely shrugged his broad shoulders and let the subject die.

The rest of the journey passed in silence. The city streets were busied with morning traffic, and Cixi watched the buildings blur past the tinted window without truly seeing any of them. Her mind was a tangled mess of logistics—the DNA test, the CCTV footage, the pregnancy belly strapped to her body, the phone call she had ended before Cassian could respond. If Cassian didn’t wield his magic wand tomorrow, she could face jail time.

When they neared her workplace, Cixi asked Rafael to drop her one bus stop before the cafe. He pulled the BMW to the curb without questioning her, and Cixi stepped out with a quick nod of thanks before shutting the door.

The moment Rafael’s car disappeared around the corner, she quickened her pace toward a nearby cafe she had never visited before. It was busy enough that no one spared her a second glance. She slipped inside, walked straight to the washroom, and locked the door behind her.

Her fingers moved rapidly, peeling off the silicone belly from beneath her loose clothing. She rolled it carefully, tucked it deep inside her backpack, and zipped the bag shut. She studied herself in the smudged mirror. Flat stomach. Oversized T-shirt hanging loosely over her frame. Just Cixi. Just a girl running late for work.

She splashed cold water on her face, dried it with a rough paper towel, and left.

She caught the next bus and arrived at the cafe within fifteen minutes. The moment she pushed through the glass door, she spotted Amanda sitting behind the counter, deep in animated conversation with Zoyar, who leaned against the counter with his usual relaxed posture.

For the first time in her life, Cixi silently thanked Zoyar for his existence. His presence had kept Amanda occupied long enough that her arrival did not trigger an immediate interrogation.

And just like the last time, the punishment for being late was cleaning duty for the rest of the day.

*

It was already afternoon. The lunch rush was in full swing. Cixi knelt near the back of the cafe, scrubbing a coffee stain from the tile floor where a customer had knocked over an entire cup.

Then a voice hit her from behind.

"You left college to work as a cleaning lady?"

At first, she thought her mind was playing cruel tricks enough to make anyone hallucinate due to stress about tomorrow’s DNA test. However, as the seconds passed by, every nerve in her body started to recognise the tone before her brain caught up.

She lifted her head, and a gasp of shock escaped her lips.

Rony.... From her old college.

He stood barely five feet away with his hands shoved into his trouser pockets, grinning from ear to ear as though he had just stumbled upon a lost toy he had been searching for. The same smug, punchable grin he had worn every single time Silvia’s group cornered her in the hallways. The same predatory amusement in his eyes that told her he had not changed. Not even slightly.

Cixi froze. The wet rag almost slipped from her fingers. Her hands refused to move, even though every cell in her body screamed at her to grab the mop handle and crack it across his jaw. Her legs refused to turn, even though her mind howled at her to run.

Her body would not listen.

The terror was not rational. She knew that. She was no longer the powerless woman whom they had dragged across classroom floors. She was no longer the girl who trembled and begged while they laughed. She had faced traffickers. She had held a gun. She had stared into the eyes of a man who beheaded people for amusement.

And yet Rony’s face dissolved all of that. His presence reached into the deepest, most fragile part of her memory and ripped it open. The locker. The video. The laughter. Silvia’s voice. The word ’whore’ spat at her like something rotten.

The fear only deepened when Ronny took several slow steps closer, closing the distance between them with the lazy confidence of someone who had never once been held accountable for anything.

"You found a decent job." His tone dripped with mockery. He tilted his head, looking her up and down, drinking in her position on the floor. "I thought I would find you in a brothel."

"Do we have a problem here?"

Another voice came from behind Ronny, carrying the kind of warning that only needed to be spoken once.

Rony turned at once.

Zoyar stood directly behind him, arms at his sides, his broad frame filling the narrow aisle between the tables. His dark eyes locked onto Ronny with a stone-cold stare that held zero patience and zero tolerance.

"I asked you a question." Zoyar did not blink. "Do we have a problem?"