Lahat ng Kabanata ng The Surrogate Virgin : Kabanata 31 - Kabanata 40

I didn’t go back to Noah’s apartment that night.I didn’t tell him where I was going. I didn’t even say goodbye.I left Nova with him because deep down, I knew she was safest with her father. I didn’t trust myself to be anything but broken, and a broken mother makes dangerous choices so I packed a small overnight bag, booked the cheapest hotel in town, and disappeared.Not forever, just long enough to breathe.I sent one text before turning off my phone:“I need time. I’ll come back. Don’t follow me.”The hotel smelled like chlorine and bleach, like the room was trying too hard to feel clean. I collapsed on the stiff mattress without changing out of my clothes, eyes locked on the cracked ceiling tile above the flickering light.I wasn’t angry or sad. Those feelings have movement, shape, and heat.This… was cold. A silence that lived under my skin.Noah’s voice played in my mind over and over not the one from the dinner table, but the one from that damn video. The soft one, the despera

The silence in the bookstore room was almost sacred. The walls smelled like old paper and dust, and the ticking clock above the window was the only sound cutting through the stillness.I hadn’t slept.The threatening messages from the unknown number were still open on my phone. My fingers hovered over the screen as if my touch alone might change the sender, turn the words into a bad dream.“You shouldn’t have gone digging, Grace.”“Next time, I won’t just take a baby. I’ll take you.”I locked the door again as if that could keep the danger out when it was already under my skin. I didn’t call Noah, I didn’t know if I could trust him anymore.My daughter was with him. I had to believe she was safe, that whatever else might be buried under the weight of his lies, he wouldn’t let anything happen to Nova but even that belief was wearing thin because Catherine had shown up in person and Desmond was still lurking, quiet and dangerous. I had a target on my back… and this time, it felt like e

Three, Two, One.The door crashed open, the hinges shrieking as the frame groaned from the impact.“Shit! They’re here!” Catherine’s scream split the silence like glass.Desmond’s voice followed, cursing sharply, but I didn’t register the words. All I saw and all I could see was Nova, my baby tied to a chair, duct tape around her wrists, eyes wide, wet and frozen in place like a trembling bird.“Nova!” I screamed, chest splitting open.Catherine spun toward me, hands shaky, holding a pistol like it weighed more than her soul. She was breathless, eyes manic.“Don’t move!” she shrieked.Noah jumped in front of me, hands up, trying to protect me with his body. “Catherine, think. You don’t want to do this.”Desmond was already pacing to the side, calm in the way only dangerous men can be. “You think you can just bust in here like some hero? You think this is over?”Noah’s eyes snapped toward him, sharp and lethal. “You touched my daughter, that’s it. That’s the line and you’ve crossed it.

The smell of pancakes drifted through the hallway before I even opened my eyes. For the first time in weeks, I woke to the sound of Nova’s laughter instead of sirens or my pounding heartbeat.She was in the kitchen, I could tell by the muffled squeals and the scrape of a chair being pushed across the tile. I pulled on one of Noah’s shirts, still faintly smelling of cedar and soap, and padded barefoot toward the warmth.Nova sat cross-legged on the counter, a mixing bowl in her lap, her curls tucked under a headband that had already slipped halfway off. She was “helping” Noah, which meant there was more batter on her cheeks than in the pan.“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Noah said without looking up, flipping a pancake with the kind of focus that made it look like he’d been training for a breakfast Olympics.I smiled. “This is new, you don’t usually cook.”Nova grinned through a mouthful of chocolate chips. “Daddy said today is special.”Noah glanced at me then, and for a second I saw the

The bracelet was colder than it had any right to be, a ghost of metal pressing into my palm. The tiny heart charm caught the weak morning light slanting through the blinds, winking like it knew something I didn’t.I should’ve gone straight to Noah, told him what had arrived on our doorstep, handed him the bracelet and photo like they were evidence in some horrible trial. That’s what a sane, reasonable person would do but sanity had nothing to do with this. This was my mother.I placed the bracelet on the counter with care, almost reverence, then picked it up again because leaving it alone felt wrong. The photo was still in my pocket, its edges digging into my thigh like a splinter. Every time I shifted my weight, I thought about her eyes in that image not just wide with fear, but locked on the lens, like she knew it was meant for me. Someplace in this city, she is alive and trapped.The sound of Nova’s giggle floated in from the living room, followed by Noah’s low voice reading someth