Chapter 4 - Vivian Cole
Damian Volkov was not a man people pitied easily.
He was too rich.
Too controlled.
Too dangerous in silence.
People assumed men like him moved on because they had the resources to replace anything.
They did not understand that power is useless against a locked absence.
He hired investigators.
Then dismissed half of them for treating Vivien like an asset instead of a terrified pregnant woman.
He traced hospitals.
Shelters.
Train routes.
Cash withdrawals.
Fake names.
Old family properties.
Every lead ended in fog.
The last confirmed sighting was a bus station camera in New Hampshire.
Vivien wearing a dark coat, one hand on her belly, face turned away.
After that, nothing.
Damian kept the nursery.
That became the wound Cassidy could not bear to look at.
Two cribs arrived after Vivien disappeared.
He had ordered them the morning she texted:
Come home early tonight. I have something beautiful to show you.
He had thought she meant furniture samples.
Or some small design project.
Vivien always called beauty practical when she was excited.
The cribs arrived in pale walnut.
Damian assembled them himself.
Alone.
At midnight.
One screw went in crooked.
He left it that way because he could not make himself care.
The bent sonogram sat on the rug between the two cribs.
He had wiped broken glass dust from it with the edge of his sleeve.
The image was creased where Vivien had gripped it.
Two small shapes.
Two lives.
His children.
Maybe alive.
Maybe not.
Maybe born under another name.
Maybe never born at all.
That uncertainty hollowed him.
Cassidy found him there one morning, sitting between the cribs in the same clothes from the day before.
She had a cane then.
Her surgical scar still pulled when she walked.
“Damian,” she said softly.
He did not look up.
“Do you think they were boys?”
Cassidy’s face crumpled.
“I don’t know.”
“Girls?”
“I don’t know.”
“One of each?”
Her hand went to her mouth.
“Damian…”
He picked up the sonogram.
“She came to tell me.”
“Yes.”
“And I was holding you.”
“You were saving my life.”
He laughed once without humor.
“That distinction did not help her.”
Cassidy slowly sat on the nursery floor despite the pain.
“I should have called her before coming.”
“I should have told her Greer was under investigation.”
“I should have waited in the lobby.”
“I should have chased her.”
Cassidy looked at him.
“And let me die?”
Damian said nothing.
She whispered, “There was no right choice.”
He looked at the sonogram.
“There was. It just wasn’t available.”
That sentence became the truth of all of them.
Vivien lived in Maine under the name Vivian Cole.
She chose the town because it had gray water, quiet streets, and people polite enough not to ask too many questions.
She rented the apartment above a closed bakery owned by an elderly woman named Nora who took cash, noticed everything, and asked nothing until the second month.
“You hiding from a man?” Nora asked while fixing a leaky pipe under the sink.
Vivien froze.
Nora did not look up.
“I’m old, not blind.”
Vivien placed one hand on her belly.
“Yes.”
“Does he hit?”
Vivien closed her eyes.
“No.”
“Worse?”
“I don’t know.”
Nora stood slowly.
“That’s usually worse.”
Vivien did not correct her.
The twins were born six weeks early during a snowstorm.
Vivien nearly lost consciousness before the second baby cried.
The boy came first.
Tiny.
Dark hair.
Furious lungs.
The girl came second.
Quiet at first.
Too quiet.
Doctors moved fast.
Vivien lay under white lights whispering, “Please, please, please,” until the girl finally released a thin, angry cry.
Then Vivien broke.
Not because she was alone.
She had been alone for weeks.
Because both babies were alive and Damian was not there to see them.
That truth split joy down the middle.
The nurse asked for names.
Vivien looked at her son.
He had Damian’s hairline already, absurdly serious for a newborn.
“Noah.”
Then the girl.
Her tiny mouth trembled exactly like Cassidy’s when she tried not to cry.
Vivien almost chose another name just to avoid the resemblance.
Then felt ashamed.
“Elise.”
Noah and Elise Cole.
Not Volkov.
Not yet.
Vivien told herself it was protection.
May you like
Sometimes it was.
Mostly, it was fear.
