Chapter 61 – Heir of Nothing
**** Isabelle’s Point of View *****
The safehouse was wrapped in silence, the kind that felt almost too heavy to breathe in. Outside, the wind threaded through the pine trees, rattling the shutters. Inside, the dim glow of the bedside lamp painted the room in gold and shadow.
I had been lying still, listening to the steady hum of the night, my hand resting on the curve of my stomach like I’d done every night since I found out. I had started whispering to the little life inside me—telling it stories, telling it that no matter how dangerous the world outside was, I would protect it.
But then… it happened.
The first pain was sharp and sudden, slicing through me so hard I thought I’d been stabbed. My breath caught, the air in my lungs frozen. Then came the sec
