Chapter 5
ASTRID
Five weeks later…
The nausea wakes me before the sun does.
I bolt upright in the hotel bed, hand clapped over my mouth, heart racing like I’ve been yanked out of a nightmare. For a second, I think maybe I’m dreaming—until my stomach twists again.
I make it to the bathroom just in time. The tiles are cold beneath my knees as I brace one hand against the wall and dry-heave into the toilet. My hair sticks to the back of my neck, sweat beading at my temples.
Jesus.
I sit there for a long moment after, gasping and shaking, trying to convince myself it’s the cheese.
It has to be the cheese. The creamy Camembert from a little bistro in the Marais last night.
Or maybe it’s my nerves. I’ve barely slept in three days, and my brain is a constant hum of old files, conspiracy theories, and dead parents.
I don’t feel sick, I just feel… off.
My breasts are sore, I’ve had a headache for three days, and yesterday I started crying in the middle of eating a croissant.
Wait. A. Minute.
My stomach drops. I reach for my phone and open my period tracking app.
Two weeks late.
“No,” I whisper. “No, no, no…”
But even as I say the words, my body already knows the truth.
It was one time. A one-time, no-name, mile-high fantasy come to life.
I drag myself up on shaky legs and reach for the small zippered pouch at the bottom of my toiletry bag. I packed it “just in case,” thinking it would stay tucked away forever, like emergency ibuprofen or pepper spray.
I rip it open, read the instructions three times, then pee on the stick and set it on the counter, backing away from it like it might explode. I set a timer for three minutes. I wash my hands. Splash cold water on my face. Pace back and forth.
Don’t look. Just breathe.
I glance at myself in the mirror. I look pale, dark circles under my eyes.
A flash of memory crashes into me before I can block it—his hands on my waist, his breath on my neck, the way he looked at me like he already knew my body better than I did. The thrust of his hips, his voice in my ear, telling me to come for him.
My breath catches.
I can still feel him, like I’ve been walking around with his imprint burned into my skin. And now, maybe, his DNA stitched into my cells.
The timer dings. I turn toward the test.
Two lines. Bold and unmistakable, unforgiving.
Positive. No room for misinterpretation. No room for denial.
I back away a step. Then another. The floor might as well fall out from under me.
My body sits down before my brain tells it to. I hit the cool tile hard, knees folded, test still clutched in my hand like it might vanish if I squeeze hard enough.
“No,” I whisper again. “No. This isn’t happening.”
Tears sting my eyes. Not from sadness, but from the kind of pressure that builds just before the dam finally gives way. My heart pounds against my ribs like it wants to escape.
Panic hits first. Not because of the baby, but because I don’t have a plan.
Then comes anger. At him—for disappearing without a word. At myself—for letting it happen. For wanting it to happen.
I could’ve said no. I didn’t. I could’ve asked his name. I didn’t.
Now I’ll never know what to call the man who turned my life inside out and left a piece of himself behind.
Finally, grief.
Not because I don’t want the baby but because everything I’ve built—my vision, my goals, my future—all just shifted on its axis. Every late night at the library. Every scholarship form. Every hustle to prove I belonged in those lecture halls.
All of my hard work has led to this: a positive pregnancy test with two pink lines and no instructions for what to do next.
I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting on the floor, but when I finally move, my hands feel steadier. Because one thing is already decided—I’m keeping it.
I pull myself up off the floor and stand in the middle of the room.
This baby didn’t ask to be part of my identity crisis or trauma spiral. Definitely not part of my parents’ bloodstained legacy. It’s not a complication. It’s a life. And I’m not leaving it behind the way I was left.
I may not have known who I really was growing up, but I do know who I’m going to be.
A mother.
I square my shoulders and stare at my reflection. I no longer see the scared, puking girl from ten minutes ago. I see someone who has survived the foster system, nailed Harvard, and followed a trail across the ocean with no map and no backup.
I won’t run. Not from this.
“If I have to do it alone,” I whisper, “I will.”
I towel off my face, brush my teeth again, and slip into an oversized sweatshirt that still smells faintly like home in Chicago.
By the time I sit down at the hotel desk, laptop open, I’m calm. Focused. Or at least pretending to be.
I want to draft a message to a university contact who might have access to old banking archives. My leads are thinning, and I’m desperate for something that isn’t redacted or “mysteriously” missing.
I open my inbox and freeze. A new email sits atop the list.
Subject: Offer of Employment – Ivanov Holdings
I click it open.
Dear Ms. Jones,
Thank you for your recent application and impressive credentials. After reviewing your academic record and internship history, we are pleased to extend a formal offer to interview for the Research Assistant position in our Finance Department.
Start date: Immediate, if interview is passed.
Compensation: $110,000 annually, with full benefits and relocation assistance if required.
Please reply at your earliest convenience if you choose to accept.
Sincerely,
Yuri Ivanov, CFO
My mouth goes dry.
I close the email and open the encrypted file I’ve been compiling for weeks. I scroll past Thierry and Melanie’s death reports. Past the liquidation trails. Past the donation shell companies and aliases.
All of them, in one way or another, lead back here.
To him.
To them.
To the family with too much money, too many secrets, and one glaring space in the narrative where my parents used to be.
I think back to the Foundation Saint-Laurent, the fake charity that received most of my parents’ estate after their deaths, only to dissolve quietly within two years. Ivanov Holdings was one of its benefactors.
And now they want me to work for them?
I sit back in the chair, staring at my laptop like it might bite me. How did they even find me? I didn’t apply to anything within their company. Perhaps someone from Harvard submitted me as a candidate. Maybe someone wanted me in their building, watching their books, keeping me close.
My hands hover over the keyboard while my heart thunders in my chest. This could be the worst idea I’ve ever had. But if there’s even a chance this job brings me closer to the truth about my parents, closer to understanding what I’ve walked into, then I have to take it.
I open the email again. I don’t move, don’t breathe. I just stare at it like the words might rearrange themselves into a warning I can’t ignore.
I stand, suddenly restless, and move to the window.
The view is pure Paris—old rooftops, wrought-iron balconies, a sky that hasn’t seen the sun in three days. It should feel romantic. Dreamy. It doesn’t. It feels like I’m being watched.
I wrap my arms around myself, rubbing the goosebumps from my skin. Something in my gut is whispering that this job offer is no coincidence.
I could delete the email. Walk away. Take the next flight back to Chicago and forget I ever opened that encrypted file. Forget the name Devereaux. Forget him.
But that’s not who I am.
My parents were murdered. I don’t need a court ruling to confirm it. I’ve seen enough red flags to wallpaper the Louvre.
This job offer is the first real chance I’ve had to get inside the machine. To learn what really happened. What the Ivanovs know. What they’ve covered up.
I turn back to the desk and sit down. My fingers hover over the keyboard as I prepare to type. A thousand versions of my reply scroll through my mind—cool, professional, eager, neutral. But only one version makes it to the screen.
I accept.
I stare at it. Two words. Seven letters. And a future I can’t predict. But it’s the one I’m choosing.
I click send and sit back, heart pounding, the cursor blinking like a warning light in the dark.