Tremors Beneath the Glass

Night cloaked the estate in a thick, velvet silence. But beneath that hush, tensions churned like molten lava.

Gina sat on the edge of her bed, the pregnancy test discarded in the trash can beside her.

Two lines.

Still pregnant.

Still uncertain.

She pressed her fingers to her temple. The weight of another child—the vulnerability it created—was a card she didn't want to play. Not now. Not when the air around her was starting to taste like war.

She hadn't told Dave.

But she had told one person.

Houna.

The older woman had said little at first. Simply lit a clove-scented candle, offered Gina tea, and let the silence settle between them like silk.

"You don't want this baby?" Houna finally asked.

"I want peace," Gina replied. "And this child... isn't peace. It's more leverage. More weakness."

"Or more power."

Gina shook her head. "You think everything is a chessboard."

"It is."

"And the pieces?"

"Are made of blood. Some of them yours."

---

Nuel stood across the street in a parked, nondescript vehicle. Hidden behind tinted windows, his eyes scanned the infrared data on his tablet. Heartbeats, movements, heat signatures. He had the estate mapped in glowing red.

And something new pulsed in the center of the master bedroom.

A second heartbeat.

He narrowed his gaze.

Gina… pregnant again?

He clenched his fist, a mix of awe and protectiveness searing his chest.

"She doesn't even know how deeply this will complicate things," he murmured.

Yet still, he couldn't move—not yet. One wrong step could tip the scale too soon. And the game was still in play.

He had to watch. Wait. Plan.

---

Inside the estate, Davina stepped lightly across the second-floor corridor. Something in her gut told her the lines between past, present, and future were dissolving. Her dreams had grown stranger—names whispered, eyes staring from smoke, and sometimes… glimpses of her own face, older, stronger, watching others kneel.

She didn't understand it yet.

But she knew it wasn't coincidence.

Down the hall, she paused outside Houna's door.

The old woman was wide awake, sitting in silence by her desk, her eyes closed but her fingers tracing patterns on a page.

"You feel it, too," Houna said without turning.

Davina opened the door slowly. "Feel what?"

"The storm that's not coming—it's already here."

Davina walked in. "What do I do?"

"You stay quiet. You watch. Learn." Houna opened one eye. "And when the time comes, you move faster than anyone expects."

Davina sat across from her. "You trained my mother, didn't you?"

"I raised her from blood and fire."

"She never talks about that part."

"She's protecting you."

Davina swallowed. "Maybe I don't want protection anymore."

Houna's smile was sad and proud all at once. "That's when the real danger begins."

---

Elsewhere, Dave scrolled through decades-old files—digitized contract drafts, real estate transfers, off-record meetings between his father and Gina's late father, Mr. Michaels.

It was all beginning to make sense.

His father hadn't just interfered with love.

He had orchestrated ruin.

He shut the laptop slowly. "My whole life," he whispered, "was built on a lie."

And now he had to confront it.

He slipped out of the study, headed toward Gina's room, only to be intercepted by her voice.

"I know what you're doing."

He turned.

She was standing by the hallway arch, barefoot, arms folded, her face unreadable.

"Digging up corpses," she added.

"I need to know, Gina. Everything."

"And when you find it?" she asked, walking toward him slowly. "What will you do with the truth?"

"Forgive you. Hate him. I don't know."

"Don't open doors you're not ready to walk through."

"I walked through it the moment I let you back into my life."

A moment passed, thick with words unsaid. Then she stepped aside and walked past him, hiding the faint tremble in her fingers.

He noticed it.

And the suspicion grew.

---

Outside, in the dark, Nuel tapped into the encrypted comms between two of Richard's operatives. A message flickered on the screen:

> "Phase Two will commence once the child is confirmed as an asset."

He frowned.

Which child?

Davina?

Or the one no one was supposed to know about?

Nuel looked toward the estate, the shadows wrapping it like secrets wrapped a story.

He had to act soon.

Because if Richard Lansing struck first—

He wouldn't just destroy Gina.

He'd erase everything she loved.