Get away from Bainbridge if you want your sister to survive.

### **Araya's POV**

I tenderly stroked my growing baby bump, my fingers trembling as I traced the barely noticeable curve. My heart clenched with pain. I never imagined I would carry a child born out of torment. A child whose father was the monster who had ruined me. But the baby had no fault in this. It was innocent. A part of me. The only piece of me that was still mine.

Tears welled up in my eyes as I hugged myself, trying to ignore the suffocating walls of the room that had been my prison. The memories clung to me like shadows I could never escape-the nights of pain, the stolen choices, the cruel smirk on his lips every time he reminded me I belonged to him.

But now, he had come to take the last thing I had left-my home.

The door slammed open.

I flinched.

Erick walked in, his presence as suffocating as ever, but something was different. He was smiling. A slow, deliberate smirk that made my stomach twist.

"Hi," he greeted, his voice deceptively casual.