Chapter 35

Esther’s POV

The air smelled of damp stone and desperation. Maybe it was just me.

Ever since I walked out of Brenn’s warehouse, my pride burning hotter than my empty stomach, I had been spiraling. The coin I had tucked away for emergencies was nearly gone. Carl’s medicine was running low, dangerously low, and Sofia—sweet, gentle Sofia—kept asking why Mama was so tired all the time, why I kept disappearing into the streets and returning with nothing but bruised hands and a strained smile.

I wanted to lie. I wanted to curl her into my arms and whisper that everything was fine, that Mama would fix it all. But my children were clever—too clever for comfort—and Carl especially carried Nicholas’s sharp, observant eyes. When he looked at me, it was like peering into my own soul. His unspoken questions shivered between us: Why are you failing us? Why are you so weak?

And maybe I was.

Because today, as I slipped into the narrow, shadowed alleys where respectable women did not tread, I knew I was about to do something reckless. Something dangerous. Something illegal.

The opportunity came through whispers. A woman in the market, hawking wilted vegetables, leaned close, breath tinged with the scent of herbs and smoke.

“You need coin,” she murmured.

I stiffened. “No.”

“Yes,” she countered smoothly. “I know the look. You’ve been shut out of proper work. Someone important has closed those doors, hasn’t he?”

Her words struck a chord too deep to ignore. I didn’t deny it. She smirked, sharp and knowing.

“Talk to Hadrick. He doesn’t ask questions. He pays.”

And so I found myself on the threshold of a shabby tavern at the edge of town. The kind of place where cracked windows let in the night wind, where drunken men on the stoop leered at every woman who walked past, and where the smell of rot, sweat, and stale ale clung to the walls like mold.

Inside, the air was thick, hot, and sour. My heart pounded in my chest, but I held my chin high. I was a healer. A mother. A survivor. I would not falter here, not yet.

“Hadrick?” I asked the barman, voice steady despite the tremor in my gut.

The man jerked his chin toward a table in the corner.

Hadrick sat there, lean and dangerous-looking, scars mapping the angles of his jaw. His eyes glimmered with amusement as I approached, like a cat watching a mouse edge toward the trap.

“So you’re the healer,” he said, voice smooth and calculating. “The one too proud to beg, but too desperate to quit.”

My cheeks burned with shame. “I need work. That’s all.”

He leaned back, lips curling in a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Good. Then you’ll take what I give you. Carry messages. Deliver packages. No questions. No hesitation. You’ll be careful, yes?”

I swallowed, nodding. It wasn’t legal. Not by any stretch. But I thought of Carl’s coughing fits, of Sofia’s hungry eyes when she paused to watch the toy stalls in the marketplace. I forced myself to nod.

“I’ll do it,” I said.

At first, the tasks were simple enough. An envelope slipped to a man at the edge of town. A small bundle delivered under cover of night. I never looked inside. I didn’t want to know. Ignorance was a comfort. The coin was steady, if tainted—but it bought food. It bought medicine. It bought just enough life for my children to continue.

But with the coin came whispers.

“Look at her, skulking in alleys.”

“She’s no doctor. She’s a thief’s errand girl.”

“Kevin must be blind to let her run free.”

Each word cut. But the deeper, sharper cut was the knowledge that Nicholas was behind it. The doors had slammed. The proper work barred. And all these shadows, these whispered routes through the underworld, were his invisible playground. He waited. Patient. Certain that sooner or later, desperation would drive me to him.

And I swore—I swore to myself as I delivered parcels in the mist and dark—that I would not. I would not crawl back. Not yet. Not like this.

The breaking point came one evening when I returned from a run, body aching, muscles raw from long hours carrying parcels heavier than I’d thought I could bear.

Carl was sitting up in bed, sweat-soaked and shaking, eyes wide, golden sparks flickering in his irises—the feral edge I feared most.

“Carl!” I rushed to his side, panic surging. “Breathe, love. Just breathe. Mama’s here. It’s all right. You’re safe.”

He clawed at his chest, gasping, the way a small wolf might thrash in the throes of some unseen predator. “I… I can’t—I can’t stop it, Mama.”

My heart fractured into pieces too small to gather. I gathered him close, rocking him gently, whispering lullabies that Sharon had once taught me to soothe the children, praying—even begging—that she would stir inside me, awaken, lend strength I did not have.

But Sharon remained silent. Dormant. Empty.

Carl finally collapsed into uneasy sleep. Sofia, sensing the storm in his veins, curled against his side, holding his hand as if sheer contact could anchor him to safety. I sat alone on the floor, back against the wall, letting my body sag into exhaustion, letting the tears burn unshed behind my eyelids.

I realized then the unthinkable truth: I was losing.

Losing the battle against Nicholas’s reach. Losing the battle against poverty. Losing the battle to keep my son’s sanity intact.

And the worst, darkest part?

For the first time, I wondered if surrender—capitulation—might be the only way left to save them. To save Carl from himself, Sofia from hunger, and all of us from the creeping despair that followed every step I took in this cursed city.

The next day, Hadrick handed me a package wrapped in oilskin, eyes glinting with some unspoken amusement as I reached for it.

“You’re good at this,” he said, voice smooth, teeth flashing in a thin smile. “Reliable. Maybe too good for a woman who pretends she’s better than the rest of us.”

I flushed, biting back a retort. “I’m not pretending anything.”

“Oh, but you are,” he said, stepping closer. “You walk like a queen stripped of her crown, still thinking you’re above us all. But you’re not. You’re here, in the dirt, same as me. Same as every desperate soul Nicholas chews up and spits out.”

His words slithered under my skin because they were true.

Even as I delivered his cursed parcels, my mind a swirl of guilt and determination, I could not shake the truth: this wasn’t living. It was surviving. Barely. It was digging trenches with my own hands just to keep the wolves at bay.

That night, after tucking Sofia under the thin blanket I had mended myself, after sitting with Carl until the tremors ceased and his golden eyes finally softened in sleep, I sank to the floor of our small, dim room.

I pressed my hands over my face, whispered into the darkness, trembling, heart aching.

“Sharon. Please. Please come back. I can’t do this without you.”

Only silence answered.

Only the echo of Nicholas’s voice lingered in my mind, the way he had once called my name—half anger, half longing, the bond between us whispering that no matter how far I fled, no matter the darkness, he still held a piece of me.

I hated that I remembered it. Hated that even now, at my lowest, some trembling part of me still responded to him.

The price of desperation was steep.

It was not merely coin.

It was dignity.

It was hope.

And it was the slow, relentless pull back into Nicholas’s orbit, whether I willed it or not.

I lay there, letting the silence settle around me, imagining the weight of every closed door, every sneer, every shadow that Nicholas had orchestrated, and for the first time, I realized something terrifying: no matter how far I ran, no matter how careful, he would always reach me. Always.

And yet… I could not stop trying.

Because I was a mother. Because I had survived worse. Because I could not, would not, allow him—or anyone—to take my children’s lives or their hope.

Even if survival meant walking through the darkness, through the filth, the shadows, and the threats.

Even if it meant facing him, one day, again.

I drew a ragged breath, bracing against the despair. I would endure. I had no other choice.

For Carl. For Sofia. For myself.

And in the quiet, I swore: I would not surrender. Not yet.