Chapter 17 Jamie
Laura recommended the medical center.
"They're known for discretion," she said, which is a polite way of saying they cater to people who need their medical care kept out of the tabloids. Politicians' mistresses. Celebrities managing addictions. Journalists who got knocked up by the sons of political dynasties.
I fit right in.
Akari sits beside me, flipping through a magazine about interior design that's two years out of date. She's taken the morning off work for this, same as she's taken time off for every appointment since I told her I was pregnant. I don't know what I'd do without her. I try not to think about it.
"You're jiggling your leg," she says without looking up.
I stop. Start again almost immediately. "Sorry."
"Nervous?"
"No." Yes. "Maybe."
She sets down the magazine and looks at me properly. "It's just a scan. You've had scans before."
"I know."
"The twenty-week scan was fine. The baby's healthy. This is just a check-up."
"I know."
It's not really the scan I'm nervous about. It's everything else.
I'm six months pregnant, and I still haven't fully wrapped my head around it. My body has changed in ways I wasn't prepared for. The swell of my belly is now impossible to hide. My lower back aches and I feel like I’m constantly waddling instead of walking. The baby is only six months along, but he’s going to be a monster. I look ready to pop.
I've read all the books, downloaded all the apps, done everything I'm supposed to do, but there's still a part of me that feels like I'm playing pretend, like any moment someone's going to tap me on the shoulder and tell me there's been a mistake.
"Jamie Dean?"
I look up. A nurse in scrubs is standing in the doorway, smiling pleasantly.
"That's me."
Akari squeezes my hand as I stand. "I'll be right here."
The sonographer is a calm woman with grey-streaked braid and a warm handshake.
"How are we feeling today?"
"Fine." The automatic answer. "Tired, but fine."
"Tired is normal at this stage. Let's take a look, shall we?"
I lie back on the bed and lift my shirt. My belly rises above me like a small planet, the skin stretched tight. I still find it strange to look at. This body used to be mine and now it belongs to someone else too.
The gel is warm, thank God. The sonographer moves the wand across my stomach, and the screen beside the bed flickers to life.
There's my baby.
I've seen the images before, but it still hits me every time.
"Looking good," She murmurs, more to herself than to me. She's taking measurements, clicking buttons, making notes. "Growth is right on track. Heartbeat is strong."
I watch my baby move on the screen. A tiny fist uncurls. A foot kicks against nothing.
"Would you like to know the sex?"
The question catches me off guard, even though I knew it was coming. I've been avoiding it, putting it off, telling myself I didn't need to know yet.
"Yes," I hear myself say. "Please."
She adjusts the wand, peers at the screen. "You're having a girl."
A girl.
I'm having a daughter. Emotion cascades through my body like a flood.
"Are you alright?" Dr. Okonkwo's voice is gentle. "Do you need a moment?"
"I'm fine." I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. "Sorry. Hormones."
"Nothing to apologise for. This is emotional for everyone."
She prints out a series of images and hands them to me. My daughter, frozen in black and white, her profile clear against the grey static of the ultrasound. She looks like a person now. A real, actual person who will exist in the world in three months' time.
I clutch the photos and try to breathe.
Afterwards, Akari takes me to lunch at a cafe near the clinic. It's the kind of place that serves avocado toast and oat milk lattes, filled with young professionals on their lunch breaks. No one looks twice at us.
"So?" Akari raises an eyebrow as I slide into the booth across from her. "Everything okay?"
"Everything's fine. Perfect, actually." I set the photos on the table between us. "It's a girl."
Her face lights up. "Jamie! A girl!" She grabs the photos, studying them. "Oh my God, look at her little nose. She's beautiful."
"She looks like a blob."
"A beautiful blob." She looks up at me, eyes bright. "How do you feel?"
I consider the question. How do I feel? Terrified. Overwhelmed. Strangely, impossibly happy.
"Ask me again in three months."
The server comes and we order—a salad for me because the baby books say I should eat more greens, a burger for Akari because she says watching me eat salads is depressing. When the food arrives, I pick at my lettuce and try to organise my thoughts.
"I've been thinking about the housing scandal piece," I say.
Akari groans. "Jamie. We're having a nice lunch. Do we have to talk about work?"
"I want to publish it under a pseudonym."
That gets her attention. She sets down her burger and looks at me. "Okay. Why?"
"Because if I put my name on it, it becomes about me. About the Crane connection. About—" I gesture vaguely at my belly. "Everything."
"And if you use a pseudonym?"
"Then it's just the story. Clean. No baggage."
Akari is quiet for a moment, considering. "What does Laura think?"
"She’s not keen. She doesn’t know about Carter so she doesn’t know why I need a clean break, but there are practical options.
If I do that, I can’t put my face on it or do interviews.
” I push a cherry tomato around my plate.
"I don't know if it'll work. But I need to try something.
I can't just keep doing background research for other people forever. "
For the past six months, I've been the invisible hand behind other people's bylines. I’ve been doing research that someone else gets credit for and fact-checking that keeps stories accurate but never bears my name.
Source cultivation that I hand off when the story gets too big for me to touch without drawing attention.
It's useful work. Important work, even. Laura reminds me of that whenever I get frustrated. "You're keeping journalism honest," she says. "That matters."
She's not wrong. But it's hard to feel like you matter when no one knows you exist.
The big story I’m investigating is different. That one's mine from the ground up. It’s a state-level housing scandal, developers bribing officials to ignore code violations. The buildings are literally falling apart while families live inside them.
It's the kind of story that could win awards, if anyone knew I'd written it.
But putting my real name on it means putting myself back in the spotlight.
"You know I'll support whatever you decide," Akari says. "But Jamie—you can't hide forever."
"I know."
"At some point, you're going to have a baby. And that baby is going to grow up and want to know who both her parents are."
"I'm working on it."
"I know you are." She reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. "I just worry about you. You’re hiding away in the apartment, working from home, never going anywhere without checking three times that no one's watching. That's not sustainable."
"It's necessary."
"Is it, though? It's been six months. The press has moved on. No one's paying attention to you anymore."
She's right, probably.
But I can't shake the fear. I don't just want to hide from the press. I want to hide from Carter.
Because if Carter finds out about the baby—if he decides he wants to be involved—I don't have the resources to fight him.
Alpha fathers have automatic custodial rights unless an omega can prove them unfit. It's one of the most fucked up parts of our legal system.
The laws have been challenged, reformed, softened around the edges. But the core assumption remains: alphas are presumed competent, omegas are presumed to need oversight.
And when the alpha in question is a Crane...
If Carter decided to pursue custody, he'd win. And that's assuming he doesn't decide I'm an unfit parent and get me cut out of my daughter’s life completely.
I can't take that risk. I won't. I haven’t told Akari yet, but as soon as the baby is born, I’m going to leave.
I can’t risk staying here in the same job and at the same apartment.
I’ll move across to the coast, a couple of timezones away and start using my mother’s name.
The harder it is for Carter to find me, the harder it will be for him to take my baby away.