Chapter 186

Ethan's POV

“Where’s my mummy?” the little voice asked, fragile and innocent, and for a moment I let the sound sit in the room. I looked down at her, at the tiny face that carried more of Lauren than any headline ever could and I felt nothing but a curious distance. She looked like Lauren, yes. The curl of her lip when she frowned, the way she blinked at the unfamiliar ceiling above her bed. But there was no mirror of me in her features, and that fact steadied something dark inside me.

“Keep quiet,” I said, flatly, and guided her to the small bedroom we’d arranged for her. This was to be temporary, I reminded myself: a holding place until Sophia and I decided the next step. I set her down on the bed and started to turn away.

She jumped up as if sensing an opening and sprinted from the room. I moved faster. Caught her by the arm and dragged her back, the motion abrupt enough to make her little legs wobble. “If you do that again, bad things are going