Steven Raglan sat alone in his dimly lit office, fluorescent lights above humming faintly as he flipped absently through a file he wasn’t reading. His eyes drifted toward the empty corner of the room, where nothing waited but shadow. The ache in his chest hadn’t left since she walked out the door that morning. Pregnant. Glowing. Smiling that smile that made him feel like he could pretend, for a while, that the other part of his life didn’t exist. But it did. It always would.

His thumb pressed harder into the edge of the folder until the paper cut him. He barely flinched. The sting grounded him. He stood, pacing slowly to the shelves behind his desk, fingers brushing over binders he hadn’t touched in weeks. His thoughts were too loud, circling her, the sound of her voice, the way she held her belly now when she laughed. His. She was his. But how long could he keep her safe from the truth?

He moved to the filing cabinet and opened a drawer, pulling out a small, old polaroid, faded at the edges, but the subject still clear. Her. Sitting in the backyard last spring, barefoot, holding a coffee mug and looking right at him. He kept it tucked between unrelated case notes. Just close enough to glance at when the need to see her became unbearable. Like today.

"She doesn't need to know," Steven muttered to himself, voice low and flat. "She just needs to stay happy. Protected. Far away from all of it." He said it like a rule. Like a promise. He ran a hand down his face, scratching through the beard at his jaw. The silence in the office pressed in on him, he could hear the faint tick of the wall clock. Every second he spent away from her dragged like a weight behind his ribs.

He returned to his chair, lowering himself heavily into it and gripping the arms like he might lift off the ground if he didn’t hold on. His other life, the real one, the one buried beneath the name Raglan and the career counselor facade, clawed at the back of his mind. He thought about blood. About metal. About the things he kept buried in locked rooms and deeper shadows. None of it could touch her. Not now. Not ever.

"I should call her," he said aloud, but didn’t move. His hand hovered over the phone, fingers twitching. Instead, he turned in his chair, looking toward the door like someone might walk through it with news that would ruin everything. But it was just the dark hallway, and the faint buzz of a light dying slowly above.

He leaned forward, elbows on the desk, and stared at his wedding ring. He twisted it, slowly, around his finger. "She’s better off not knowing," he whispered, almost like a confession. His heart hurt. Not from guilt, he had long since killed that, but from want. Longing. He didn’t deserve her, but he had her. And now, she carried his child. That meant the stakes were higher than ever.

"I’ll be home soon," he said into the empty room, staring at the photo again. "I just have a few loose ends to tie up." His voice dropped as he added under his breath, "And no one gets near her. No one."

The door remained closed. The clock kept ticking. And Steven sat there, in the quiet, missing her so badly it nearly drove him mad.