The week after Mark’s Singapore trip ended on a Monday, the house had that quiet, heavy silence only a family can have when the man of the house is gone. Emma stood in the kitchen at 9:17 p.m., barefoot on the cold tile, still wearing the same robe she’d slept in for the last two days. The dark line on her belly felt tighter than usual, like her skin had decided to stay stretched and marked forever. Six weeks had blurred into seven, then eight, and her body had stopped pretending it was ever going back to normal.
She didn’t have to text them. They already knew.
Marcus was waiting in the basement, whiskey in one hand and a small black velvet box in the other. Jax stood behind him, phone in his palm, the ring light on it casting soft shadows across the concrete walls. The rest of the house
