Updated Oct 29, 2025 • ~8 min read
Six weeks after Clara was born, they drove back to Connecticut.
Gabriel’s lawyer had handled everything—birth certificate under Jane Mercer’s name, documentation that would hold up to casual scrutiny but wouldn’t connect back to Celeste Astor. It wasn’t perfect. But it was enough.
“You’re sure about this?” Gabriel asked for the tenth time as they crossed the state line.
Jane looked at Clara sleeping in the car seat behind them. Six weeks old. Healthy. Perfect. Safe.
Everything Jane had fought for.
“I’m sure.” Her voice was steady. “I can’t hide forever. And I won’t let them get away with what they did.”
They’d planned this for weeks. While Jane recovered from birth, while she learned how to be a mother, while Clara learned how to exist in the world—they’d planned.
How to return. How to stay hidden while gathering proof. How to make David and Vivienne pay for everything.
Gabriel had booked them into the Meridian—a luxury hotel in downtown Hartford, far enough from the Astor estate to avoid accidental encounters, nice enough that no one would question their presence.
Two rooms. Connected. One for Jane and Clara, one for Gabriel.
Professional. Appropriate. Nothing that would raise eyebrows.
Even though Gabriel had spent most nights in Seabrook Bay sleeping on Jane’s couch, watching over them both.
Even though Jane had started thinking of him as part of their small family.
Even though the lines between them had blurred so completely she couldn’t find them anymore.
They checked in under false names—Gabriel had IDs made, good enough to pass. He signed for everything. Jane stayed back with Clara, just another young mother traveling with her baby.
The suite was beautiful. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. Separate bedroom and living area. Everything expensive and impersonal and nothing like the small apartment above Mrs. Gallagher’s bakery that had become home.
“This feels wrong,” Jane said, setting down the diaper bag.
“Wrong how?”
“Too exposed. Too—” She gestured at the windows. “Visible.”
Gabriel moved to close the curtains. “Better?”
Not really. But Jane nodded anyway.
Clara woke up, fussing. Jane lifted her from the car seat, settled into the armchair by the window to nurse. This was still new—still strange and intimate and overwhelming. But Clara latched easily now, had gained weight perfectly, was thriving despite everything.
Gabriel busied himself unpacking, giving them privacy even though he’d seen Jane nurse a hundred times by now.
“What’s the plan?” he asked, back turned. “For tomorrow.”
Jane looked down at Clara. At her daughter’s tiny hand resting against her breast, at her dark eyelashes, at the absolute trust in her small body.
Tomorrow she would start dismantling David’s life the way he’d tried to dismantle hers.
“Tomorrow I start gathering evidence,” Jane said. “About the affair. About the truck that ran me off the road. About everything.”
“My PI already has most of that.”
“But I need to see it. Need to understand exactly what we’re working with.” She stroked Clara’s hair gently. “And then I need to make an appearance.”
Gabriel turned. “You mean—”
“I mean David thinks I’m dead. Vivienne thinks she won. My mother thinks she lost a daughter.” Jane’s voice was hard. “Tomorrow, I remind them all that I’m very much alive.”
“That’s dangerous.”
“I know.”
“David tried to kill you once—”
“And he’ll try again. Probably.” Jane met Gabriel’s eyes. “But I can’t live in hiding forever. And I won’t. Clara deserves better than a mother who’s always running, always scared.”
Gabriel crossed the room, crouched in front of her chair. “Then we do this smart. Carefully. With protection.”
“What kind of protection?”
“The legal kind. We document everything. We make sure there are witnesses. We make sure if anything happens to you, David goes down for it.” His expression was fierce. “I won’t let him hurt you again.”
Jane shifted Clara to her other side. “You can’t promise that.”
“Watch me.”
They stared at each other. Jane saw the determination in Gabriel’s face. The protectiveness. The something else she didn’t want to name.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked quietly. “Really. You could have walked away months ago. Gone back to your life. But you’re here. Planning revenge with me. Risking everything for—” She gestured at herself, at Clara. “For this.”
Gabriel was quiet for a long moment. Then: “Because watching you survive everything David threw at you, watching you build a life from nothing, watching you bring Clara into this world—” He stopped. “You made me want to stop running. Made me want to fight for something. For someone.”
“Gabriel—”
“I’m not asking for anything,” he said quickly. “I know this is complicated. I know you’re not ready for—for anything beyond what we have. But I need you to know. You and Clara—” His voice roughened. “You’re the best thing that’s happened to me in years. And I’m not walking away.”
Jane’s throat tightened. Clara had fallen asleep, milk-drunk and peaceful. Jane carefully adjusted her clothes, held her daughter against her shoulder.
“I don’t know how to do this,” she whispered. “How to let someone care about us. How to trust that you won’t leave or change or turn into—”
“Into David?” Gabriel’s jaw clenched. “Never. I would never—”
“I know. Logically, I know. But there’s this part of me that’s still—” Jane looked down. “Broken. Scared. Waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
Gabriel reached up, touched her face gently. “Then I’ll wait. However long it takes for you to believe I’m not going anywhere. That I’m not him. That this—” He gestured between them. “Whatever this is, it’s real.”
Jane leaned into his touch without thinking. “What if I can never believe it?”
“Then I’ll keep proving it. Every day. For as long as you’ll let me.”
Clara made a small sound in her sleep. Jane stood carefully, carried her to the portable crib Gabriel had set up. Laid her down gently, watched her settle.
Her daughter. Her fierce, perfect, innocent daughter who deserved a mother brave enough to fight.
Jane turned back to Gabriel. “Tomorrow, I make them pay. For everything they did. Everything they took. Everything they tried to destroy.”
“Tomorrow we make them pay,” Gabriel corrected. “You’re not doing this alone.”
“You could lose everything. If David finds out you’ve been helping me—”
“I don’t care. He’s not my brother anymore. Hasn’t been for years.” Gabriel stood. “And you—you and Clara—you’re more important than anything he could take from me.”
Jane crossed the space between them. Stood close enough to feel his warmth, to see the certainty in his eyes.
“Thank you,” she said. “For everything. For finding me. For staying. For—” She gestured helplessly. “This.”
Gabriel smiled. Small and sad and true. “You don’t have to thank me for wanting to be here.”
“Yes, I do. Because I—” Jane stopped. Almost said it. Almost told him what she’d been feeling for weeks now. But the words caught in her throat. Too big. Too scary. Too real.
“Because?” Gabriel prompted gently.
“Because I’m grateful.” Not the truth. But close enough.
Gabriel studied her face. Like he could see what she wasn’t saying. But he didn’t push. Just nodded. “Get some rest. Tomorrow starts early.”
He moved toward the door connecting their rooms.
“Gabriel?”
He turned back.
“Will you—” Jane hesitated. “Will you stay? Just for a little while? Until Clara fully settles?”
It was an excuse. They both knew it. Clara was already asleep.
But Gabriel nodded. “Of course.”
He settled into the chair by the window. Jane climbed into the bed, exhaustion suddenly overwhelming. She’d been running on adrenaline for weeks—planning, preparing, getting ready for this moment.
Now they were here. In Connecticut. In David’s city.
Tomorrow everything would change.
“I’m scared,” Jane admitted into the darkness.
“I know,” Gabriel said. “But you’re also brave. Braver than anyone I’ve ever known.”
“What if this goes wrong? What if he—”
“Then we adapt. We survive. We keep Clara safe.” Gabriel’s voice was absolute certainty. “That’s the only thing that matters. Keeping her safe.”
Jane looked at Clara sleeping peacefully in her crib. At Gabriel watching over them both.
At this impossible family they’d become.
“Tomorrow,” she whispered. More to herself than to Gabriel. “Tomorrow I take back everything they stole from me.”
“Tomorrow,” Gabriel agreed. “But tonight—tonight you rest. You’re safe here. We both are.”
Jane closed her eyes. Let his voice anchor her. Let the knowledge that he was there, watching, protecting, settle into her bones.
Tomorrow she would be Celeste Astor again.
Tomorrow she would face David and Vivienne.
Tomorrow the real war would begin.
But tonight she was just Jane. Just a mother with her daughter and the man who’d somehow become essential to their survival.
Tonight that was enough.
She fell asleep thinking: I love him.
And woke up knowing: Tomorrow, I destroy the man I used to love.
And I won’t feel guilty about it at all.
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