The hospital was never truly silent, but the estate had become a tomb of watchful stillness. Clover slept peacefully now, her small, rhythmic breaths the only soundtrack to the long nights Victoria spent standing guard. That alone—the sheer, terrifying vulnerability of motherhood—had changed Victoria in ways that were irreversible.
She watched her daughter breathe with the vigilance of someone who had looked into the abyss and realized the world could take what mattered most in the blink of an eye. The fear hadn't left her; it had simply undergone a chemical change. It had hardened from a paralyzing cold into a sharp, white-hot purpose.
Victoria stood at the floor-to-ceiling glass wall of the nursery as the first gray light of dawn broke over the Geneva skyline. Her fingers rested lightl
