CHAPTER 3: The Wrong Woman

Siena lay on her couch, half-buried under a blanket, the hum of the city muffled by the shut windows. Her body was heavy, like it had absorbed all the stress of the day and refused to let go. The boy’s voice still echoed in her head.

Mommy.

That one word had turned her insides upside down.

She closed her eyes and pressed her palm to her forehead. Maybe she should have knelt, asked the kid where his actual mother was, taken him to the park bench where the other moms sat. But at the time, it had felt like she was the one being ambushed.

She had handled it. She walked away.

But something about those teary brown eyes stuck in her mind like gum on the sole of a shoe. A kid crying because she rejected him—yeah, it didn’t sit right.

Siena exhaled and sat up. She grabbed her laptop from the side table and opened it. Thesis deadline in six days. She stared at the blinking cursor. It stared back. Nothing came.

She rubbed her temples. Her thoughts kept circling back to the park.

Had someone picked him up by now? Where was his actual mother?

Her stomach growled.

She shut the laptop and shuffled to the kitchen. Instant noodles. Again. She filled a pot with water and stared at it on the stove.

The kettle clicked on by reflex. She didn’t even remember pressing it.

Outside, a streetlamp flickered. The air felt heavier than usual.

Somewhere across the road, inside a sleek black car with tinted windows, a figure sat quietly, watching.

Lucien Dela Vega leaned back in the driver's seat, one hand resting loosely on the steering wheel. Tall, broad-shouldered, and razor-sharp in posture, he wore a tailored black coat over a dark dress shirt. His hair was jet black, trimmed close on the sides, longer on top, and swept back like someone too precise to be careless. Under the dim light, his green eyes scanned Siena’s building with quiet intensity. His face was striking, all sharp lines and quiet menace.

The boy had stopped crying by now. He was safe. Fed. Tucked into bed by someone who knew how to soothe him.

But Lucien hadn’t stopped thinking.

He replayed the scene in his mind, over and over. The woman. Her hesitation. The way she looked at the boy before walking away.

She wasn’t a stranger.

She had hesitated. That look, it wasn’t confusion. It was recognition. Or something close.

Inside her flat, Siena took a bite of her overcooked noodles and winced. Her phone buzzed beside her.

> Liam: Just checking in. Still alive?

> Siena: Alive. Barely. Ate noodles.

> Liam: You need better coping skills.

> Siena: Tell that to my tuition fees.

She tossed her phone aside and curled back into the couch. Her cramps had dulled, but her brain still spun in circles.

She pulled her knees up and wrapped the blanket tighter around her.

She didn’t want to think about today. But her brain wouldn’t stop.

Why did that boy think she was his mother?

And why did a part of her flinch at the possibility that he could be right?

She hadn’t forgotten everything.

There were blank spaces. Foggy moments. A whole year of her life that still came back in flashes. Hospital lights. A cold hand squeezing hers. A lullaby humming in the background. And crying. Always crying.

She had chalked it up to trauma. Side effects from that night. The surgery. The blood loss. The fear.

But now?

She grabbed a pillow and hugged it to her chest.

It had been years since anyone had called her Mommy.

Because no one ever had.

Or so she thought.

A knock at the window made her flinch. Just a branch tapping the glass. She tried to laugh at herself, but her throat felt tight.

She was being paranoid. She always got this way when her body was tired and her emotions were frayed.

She checked the locks. Twice.

Then crawled back into bed.

Across the street, the car finally started. Its headlights flicked on, slicing through the night. Light spilled briefly across her apartment window, brushing the edges of her curtain, then faded as the car pulled away.

Inside the vehicle, Lucien watched until the building vanished from his rearview mirror.

She hadn’t screamed at the boy.

She hadn’t hit him.

She hadn’t even asked who he was. Only that she wasn’t his mother.

That wasn’t how strangers reacted.

It was how someone reacted when they were scared of the truth.

And Lucien knew the truth.

He just needed her to remember it.

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