I wasn’t looking for you.

Swear on whatever’s left of me—I wasn’t. I was here for work. Territory check. Make sure the new players knew whose name came first and last. That’s it.

Then someone said your name.

I laughed. Told myself it was just someone else. A ghost with the same mouth. Same laugh. Couldn’t be you. You were gone. Out of my life like a knife pulled too fast—left a hole, but I bled and moved on.

I arrived in Hampstead—London like it was any other day.

But then I saw her.

Outside some school. Tiny thing. No older than four years old. Wind whipping her curls around like the world owed her something.

Curls.

My curls.

And her eyes—fuck, my eyes. Staring right through me like she’d seen me before. Like she knew me. And that smile? That crooked little smirk?

I’ve done things that would make devils flinch. I’ve pulled triggers and buried men without blinking. But that smile—that nearly took me out.

Still—I told myself it meant nothing. Coincidence. Shitty luck.

Because she couldn’t be mine.

You wouldn’t do that to me.

Right?

Then I saw you for the first time in four years.

Frozen. Pale. That same look you used to give me when you were about to cry but didn’t want me to see. You stared at her, then at me—and I felt it. Like a sledgehammer in my chest.

You call out to the little girl. “Aurora! C’mere, darlin.”

Aurora? The little girl who looks like I’m looking into a mirror is named Aurora.

Everything slammed into place.

And I hated you for it.

I crossed the road slow, like I wasn’t shaking inside. Like I wasn’t one wrong breath from falling apart.

I stopped in front of you. Looked you dead in the eyes, and my voice came out low, tight, dangerous.

“Is she mine?”

Say no.

Tell me I’m mad. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me this isn’t what it looks like.

Because if she is—if you took my kid and disappeared, if you let her grow up thinking I was nobody—I don’t know what the fuck I’ll do.

I don’t even know who I am anymore.

So go on. Say it.

Lie to me.

Tell me she’s not mine.

Please.