Chapter Twenty-eight
Serena
“Relax,” my therapist says softly. “And close your eyes.”
I do as I’m told, even though every instinct in my body wants to resist. My hands rest on my belly, heavy now, stretched and warm, eight months pregnant and feeling like my body no longer belongs entirely to me.
The chair beneath me feels too small, the room too quiet, the air too still.
Hypnosis therapy. My first time. I promised myself I would try everything, every possible way to heal, after New Year’s.
And here I am.
For the last two months, I’ve made myself the priority.
Therapy twice a week. Pregnancy exercises.
Prenatal massages. Breathing techniques.
Journaling. Long walks. Quiet mornings. I’ve learned how to sit with my thoughts instead of running from them.
I’ve learned how to ground myself when memories try to claw their way back into my chest.
What I haven’t learned is how to stop missing him.
I barely saw Lorenzo these past months. That was my choice.
My boundary. My decision to ask for space, and he respected it in a way that hurt more than if he hadn’t.
He accepted my request without argument, without pressure, without breaking it once.
The irony isn’t lost on me. The man who once refused to let me breathe without him now keeps his distance because I asked him to.
And the absence is unbearable.
He still came with me to every doctor’s appointment.
He never missed one. Until Bianca returned, he stopped by every day, bringing lunch, dinner, reminding me to drink water, to eat, to rest. He checked my vitamins, adjusted pillows, made sure the house was warm enough.
But he never touched me. Not my hand. Not my waist. Not my hair.
And God help me, I miss his touch like air.
I should be proud. Proud of him for respecting me. Proud of myself for choosing healing. For focusing on my mind, my body, my babies. I know this is what I wanted. I asked for this distance. I needed it.
But some nights, I lie awake and wish he would ignore me just once.
I want him to kiss me. To pull me into his chest. To remind me that I am not alone in this. Pregnancy has stripped me raw, emotionally exposed, fragile in ways I didn’t expect. I cry more easily now. Feel more deeply. Every sensation is heightened. Every fear louder.
One month.
I’m one month away from giving birth.
One month away from becoming a mother.
The weight of it settles heavily in my chest. What will that mean for me? For Lorenzo? For us? Do I still want him away from me when our children arrive? Do I still believe distance will protect me, or them?
“Serena,” Marc’s calm voice breaks through the noise in my head. “Are you focusing?”
I inhale sharply, realizing how far I’ve drifted. My thoughts snap back into the room, back into my body, back into the present.
“Yes,” I say quietly. “I’m sorry.”
I close my eyes again.
And this time, I try to stay.
“Good,” Marc says softly. “Then let the room fade. You don’t have to try. Just allow.”
I close my eyes.
At first, there is only darkness. Not the kind that terrifies, no edges, no corners, no threat.
Just something heavy and quiet, warm enough to cradle me.
My breathing slows before I consciously notice it happening.
Each inhale sinks deeper than the last, like my lungs are remembering how to expand properly for the first time in months.
“Focus on the sound of my voice,” Marc continues. “Nothing else needs your attention right now.”
His words don’t enter me so much as they drift around me, circling instead of landing.
The chair beneath my body fades.
I’m not falling, but I’m no longer sitting either.
“There may be images,” he says calmly. “Or there may be nothing. Whatever comes, you observe it. You don’t participate.”
My fingers twitch. Something inside me shifts, subtle but undeniable. The darkness around me begins to thin, like fog slowly pulling back. Shapes start to form. Shadows sharpen. And then it hits me. I’m in a room.
White, but not clean. The walls are too smooth, too reflective, as if they were designed to erase sound the moment it’s made. A sharp, artificial light hums overhead, cold and constant. I try to move, but my body feels distant, uncooperative, like it belongs to someone else entirely.
I’m lying on a table.
Metal presses against my back, the chill seeping through fabric and straight into my bones.
My heart stutters.
“You’re safe,” Marc murmurs, his voice anchoring me from far away. “Just notice what’s there.”
I look down.
My left wrist is restrained, loosely, almost casually. There’s an IV needle inserted into my vein, clear tubing snaking upward to a suspended bag. The liquid inside isn’t clear. It has a faint, milky hue, swirling slowly as it drips.
Each drop sends a strange wave through me.
My head feels light. Heavy. Dizzy in a way that tilts the room, like gravity is something optional here.
I try to focus.
There are people.
A man near the foot of the table. Another at my side. A woman hovering close to my head. I know they’re there, I feel them, but when I try to see their faces, my vision slides away, refusing to settle.
Faceless.
Their bodies are solid. Their voices real. But where their faces should be, there is only blur. Blankness. Like my mind has deliberately taken an eraser and dragged it across their features.
My chest tightens.
“Notice the feeling,” Marc says gently. “Not the fear. The quality of it.”
It isn’t panic.
It’s disorientation.
Like being awake inside a dream that refuses to follow rules.
The woman leans closer. I can smell her, expensive perfume layered over something sharp and clinical. Alcohol wipes. Latex. Metal.
She touches my cheek.
The contact is gentle. Almost affectionate.
“Easy,” she says.
Her voice is smooth. Controlled. Familiar in a way that makes my stomach turn.
“Cognac Diamond.”
The words slide into me like a key turning in a lock.
My breath catches.
The name doesn’t echo like a symbol. It doesn’t feel imagined. It lands heavy and precise, like it belongs somewhere deep inside me.
“Good,” Marc says quietly. “Stay with that. Does the scene change when you hear it?”
No.
The room remains the same. The light hums. The drip continues. The dizziness pulses in slow, nauseating waves, blurring the edges of my thoughts.
The woman repeats it, softer now. Almost fond.
“Cognac Diamond. . . that’s what you are.”
My throat tightens.
I don’t know what it means, but my body reacts before my mind can. My fingers curl weakly against the restraint. A shiver crawls up my spine, cold and instinctive.
The man beside me says something. I can’t hear the words, only the tone. Low. Impatient. The other man shifts his weight. The sound of shoes against the floor is too loud in the sterile quiet.
I try to scream.
Nothing comes out.
“You’re doing very well,” Marc’s voice cuts through, steady and present. “You’re observing. You’re not trapped.”
The woman straightens.
Her shadow stretches across me.
“Let’s see how long it takes,” she says.
The IV drip speeds up.
The dizziness swells, thick and overwhelming, pressing against my skull until the room begins to fracture at the edges. The light smears. The figures blur further, their bodies warping like reflections in disturbed water.
My heartbeat roars in my ears.
And then—
“Serena.”
Marc’s voice is firm now. Grounding.
“Pause the image.”
The room freezes.
The drip halts mid-fall.
The faceless figures go still.
“You’re here,” he says. “With me. In my office. Eight months pregnant. Safe.”
Air rushes back into my lungs, sharp and desperate.
The image doesn’t disappear completely, but it recedes, like a photograph sliding out of focus.
“That’s enough for today,” Marc continues gently. “You don’t need more.”
My eyelids flutter beneath closed lashes.
The name still lingers.
Cognac Diamond.
It doesn’t feel like a nightmare.
It feels like something waiting to be understood.
My heart is racing.
What the hell was that supposed to mean?
I’ve had this nightmare before. More than once.
The same faceless woman, her voice smooth and reverent, praising me.
Telling me how beautiful I am. Telling me how my eyes resemble the Cognac Diamond.
Every single time I wake up screaming, drenched in fear so sharp it leaves me shaking long after I’m conscious.
And every single time, I know.
I know she wasn’t saying it as a compliment.
Something twists violently in my stomach, nausea rising fast and hot. My body recognizes the danger before my mind can catch up.
“We’ll have our last meeting next week,” Marc says gently, pulling me back into the present. “And then we’ll resume after you give birth. This is stressful enough, and I don’t want to push the hypnotic therapy further right now.”
My throat feels tight when I speak. “What do you think those are?” I almost whisper it.
He studies me quietly, his gaze kind but assessing. “What do you think they are?”
And there it is.
The truth I didn’t come here to discover, but to deny.
I swallow hard, forcing the tears back even though they burn. “Memories.”
Marc nods once, slow and deliberate. “You’ve been through an extreme trauma during one of the most sensitive periods of your life.
Captivity alone can fracture memory. Captivity while pregnant, when everything is heightened, can be devastating.
” His voice remains steady. “I believe your mind converted those memories into nightmares. That’s why you don’t remember that period clearly.
Your brain protected you by blocking the images. ”
The tears spill anyway.
“But trauma doesn’t disappear,” he continues softly. “It finds other ways to surface. Through dreams. Through fragments. Through names.”
Cognac Diamond.
“Whatever happened,” he says gently, “is in the past. We’ll work through it, piece by piece, when you’re ready. The goal isn’t to relive it, but to understand it, so you can put it down.”
I nod, even though my hands are trembling.
“Okay,” I hear myself say, my voice distant.
“You can still come in if the pregnancy becomes overwhelming,” Marc adds. “Or we can talk remotely. Whatever feels safest for you.”
“Thank you,” I say, pushing myself up from the sofa with effort. God, I’m huge. He helps me without comment, and I’m grateful for the lack of pity. “I really appreciate everything.”
He nods, and I leave the clinic feeling heavier than when I walked in.
Outside, even moving feels like a chore.
Lorenzo disapproved of walking weeks ago.
Standing for too long. Existing without supervision.
He stationed two guards on me at all times, insisted on a nurse following me everywhere, and only reluctantly accepted that a full-time doctor might be excessive, after an hour-long argument.
“Miss, let me help you,” my new guard says.
“It’s fine, Leo,” I reply, managing a small smile. “I can get into a car myself.”
He smiles back, clearly pleased that I remembered his name. My memory has been terrible lately.
“Serena.”
My hand freezes on the car door.
That voice.
I turn slowly.
Lauren Beaumont stands a few feet away, immaculate as ever. Tanned. Elegant. Untouched by guilt or time. My mother, finally deciding to acknowledge my existence after six months.
“Mother,” I say flatly.
Her gaze flicks to my stomach, and I don’t miss the lack of surprise. “You’re pregnant,” she states.
“And you’re back,” I reply coolly.
She softens her voice, a performance I know too well. “Can we talk?”
“I’m busy,” I say, exhausted. “And eight months pregnant. I’m not interested in long conversations or lunch dates somewhere that isn’t my home.”
“We can talk at your house,” she insists. “I really need to speak to you, Serena.”
I almost roll my eyes. “Maybe another time.”
I reach for the door.
She steps in front of it.
“Please,” she says quietly. “You’re in danger. And we need to talk.”
My breath catches. In danger? How would she know that? The question lands heavy in my mind, sharp and unsettling. Something about the way she said it twists in my chest, like she knows more than she should.
I don’t have the energy to argue. “Fine. Get in the car. We’ll go home.”
She slips inside. Leo’s eyes meet mine in the mirror as his fingers move discreetly over his phone. Lorenzo will know within seconds.
The car pulls away.
My mother starts talking, about missing me, about becoming a grandmother, about how excited she is. As if she’ll ever be allowed near my children. As if she didn’t vanish when I needed her most. As if she wasn’t cruel when my father was alive and silent when he died.
I stare out the window, numb.
If there was ever a decent parent between the two of them, it was my father.
This is going to be a very long ride.