Page 102 of Baby Surprise for my Brother's Best Friend

Nikolai raises a brow. “So, why do you look like someone just cut your brakes?”

I let out a slow breath, the weight of it pressing against my ribs. “Because I can still lose her. Because maybe, no, most probably, I’ll fuck it up. Because I’ve never wanted something this much that wasn’t about money or pleasure, and that makes it feel like it could disappear just as fast.”

For a beat, we sit in silence. Then Nikolai clinks his glass to mine.

“Then don’t fuck it up.”

The night has thinned into silence by the time I leave the club, the chill of early morning curling around my collar. Streetlights buzz overhead, casting long shadows across the pavement. The city’s still awake in that half-alive way, distant sirens, a car passing now and then, the occasional shuffle of footsteps behind closed windows, the faint smell of wet pavement rising from the concrete.

I walk with Sophie’s almond croissant tucked under my arm in its little, white box. It smells like her, like comfort and early mornings and everything I didn’t know I needed until I had it.

I’m halfway to the car when I catch a

flash of white beneath the windshield wiper.

My body stills.

The box shifts slightly under my arm as I step closer, the paper crisp and deliberate, untouched by wind or rain.

My fingers close around it.

Five words.

You can’t protect her forever.

It’s not just the words. It’s the way they’re written.

The same sharp slant. The same narrow spacing.

I haven’t seen this handwriting in months, but I’d know it anywhere.

My vision narrows. My breath turns shallow.

This is no prank.

This is a message.

I glance up, scanning the streets, windows, alleyways, the rooftop above the opposite building.

Nothing.

No one.

But I can feel it. That electric buzz under my skin. The awareness of being watched.

I crush the note in my fist, the sharp crinkle of paper loud in the silence, jaw locking tight.

I thought the past had buried itself. I thought whatever shadows I left behind in Tuscany had stayed there.

Clearly, I was wrong.

I grip the croissant tighter, suddenly absurd in my hand.

I haven’t felt fear in a long time, not real fear.

But now?

With Sophie in the picture?

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