Vivian’s breath caught in her throat.

The name had left her lips before she could think, before she could measure whether she should say it at all.

“You’re Lucas.”

The words hung in the air, suspended between them in the narrow alley, heavy with something she couldn’t quite name.

Lucas didn’t react immediately.

He just stood there, still as stone, his dark eyes watching her with something unreadable, something that made her pulse thrum unevenly.

For a second—a single, suspended moment—she thought maybe she had imagined saying it.

But then his gaze sharpened.

Not in recognition. Not in confirmation.

In calculation.

As if her knowing his name had just changed something.

She swallowed, her fingers still gripping the fabric of his hoodie, holding it against her chest like it was the only thing tethering her to reality.

“How the hell do you know me?”

His voice was low, even, controlled—too controlled.

Vivian’s throat tightened.

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He didn’t sound surprised.

He didn’t sound relieved.

He sounded like she wasn’t supposed to know who he was.

For the first time since she had seen him in Orchid Alley, since he had torn that man off of her like it had cost him nothing, she felt the sharp edge of uncertainty.

Maybe she had made a mistake.

Maybe Serena had made a mistake.

But then she remembered—Serena never made mistakes.

She forced herself to swallow, forced herself to steady her voice, even though everything inside her felt like it was breaking apart.

“Serena and Vince said I could trust you.”

She barely got the words out.

She hadn’t planned to say them.

Hadn’t planned to hand that truth to him so easily.

But it was already done.

And Lucas—he didn’t react at all.

Not at first.

Then something changed in his expression. Not much, not enough for anyone else to notice.

But Vivian wasn’t anyone else.

She had spent her whole life reading between the lines, studying the way people said things without saying them, knowing when someone’s silence meant more than their words.

And right now, Lucas’s silence was deafening.

His name had done something to him.

But Serena and Vince’s names?

They had cut.

A sharp breath escaped her before she could stop it, before she could bury it beneath whatever control she had left.

Her hands clenched around his hoodie, the weight of everything hitting her all at once.

Serena is missing.

Vince is dead.

The two people who had always protected her were gone.

And standing in front of her was the only person left.

She had spent days holding it together, controlling the spiraling, pushing down everything she hadn’t had time to feel.

But this wasn’t just logic anymore.

This wasn’t a puzzle to solve, a probability equation to balance, a variable to control.

This was grief, raw and unbearable.

And it was crashing down on her all at once.

Her hands shook.

Her breath came too fast, too shallow, too wrong.

She felt too heavy, too cold, and suddenly, she needed—no, she needed something to hold onto, something solid, something real.

Was he even real?

Or was this just another thing about to disappear?

A sharp sob escaped her before she could stop it.

And then she did something she never thought she would do.

She broke.