I took a step backward, the sharp edge of the wooden railing pressing hard into my lower back. Below us, the sea crashed against the black rocks with a deafening roar, sending a spray of fine salt mist over my shoulders. Leo buried his face in the crook of my neck, his entire body trembling violently as he sobbed into my skin.

«Touch him and I jump,» I said. My voice was eerily steady, stripped of all the fear that was currently liquefying my insides.

The man with the tranquilizer gun paused, his weapon still leveled at Leo’s small frame. His partner glanced back toward the tinted glass of the SUV, where Arthur remained motionless in the rear seat, a shadowy silhouette observing us through the four-inch gap in the window.

For three agonising seconds, the only sound was the pounding surf and the throbbing idle of the V8 engine.

Then, a sudden, metallic clink echoed from the wreckage of the shattered café tables behind the suits.

The man with the gun whipped around, but he was a fraction of a second too late. The stranger in the white linen shirt reappeared from behind an overturned umbrella stand, holding a heavy chrome fire extinguisher he had ripped from the café wall. Without a word, he swung it sideways with brutal precision, catching the armed man squarely in the temple.

The guard dropped like a stone, the tranquilizer gun clattering across the deck and slipping through the wooden slats into the froth below.

The second suit reached for his belt, but the stranger leaped forward, slamming the heavy canister into the man’s ribs with a sickening crack. The guard doubled over, gasping for air, and the stranger grabbed him by the collar, hurling him over the low promenade barrier. The man hit the shallow foam near the rocks with a heavy splash.

«Run! To the hotel!» the stranger barked, turning to face me. His white shirt was splattered with dirt and dark grease, his grey eyes blazing with an urgency that left no room for doubt.

I didn’t ask questions. I gripped Leo tighter against my hip, spun around, and sprinted down the narrow pedestrian alleyway, my bare feet slapping hard against the cobblestones. Behind us, I heard the mechanical slam of the SUV’s heavy doors, followed by the heavy, rhythmic thud of men giving chase on foot.

We burst out of the alley onto the sun-drenched boulevard facing the high-rise hotel. Cars honked furiously as I darted straight through three lanes of moving traffic, barely dodging a yellow cab that skidded to a halt inches from my knees. I didn’t stop. I hurled myself through the hotel’s revolving glass doors and into the air-conditioned silence of the marble lobby.

My heart felt as though it were tearing through my ribs. I practically fell into the elevator, pulling the key card from my pocket with fingers so numb I could barely hold it. I swiped the steel card against the brass sensor.

The indicator light flashed green. The doors glided shut just as two figures in dark suits burst through the hotel entrance.

The elevator surged upward, the quiet hum of the cables mocking the hurricane inside my chest. I set Leo down on the mirrored floor. He huddled against the corner, staring up at me with wide, terrified eyes.

«Mommy,» he whispered, his voice small and thin. «Why did the man say father was lying?»

I froze, kneeling in front of him. «What do you mean, Leo?»

Leo reached into his small pocket—the same pocket where I had found the GPS tracker—and pulled out a tiny, crumpled piece of lined paper. «The man in the white shirt gave me this at the ice cream shop yesterday, before Dad caught us. He told me to keep it secret.»

I unfolded the paper with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking. Written in neat, hurried script was a single paragraph:

Julian isn’t your real husband, and the boy isn’t his son. Check the birthmark on his left shoulder against the seal on room 1402.

My breath caught in my throat. I stared at the paper, the world tilting violently on its axis. Not my husband? I had six years of memories with Julian. Six years of bruises, of fear, of isolation in that isolated estate in the hills. How could he not be my husband?

The elevator chimed smoothly, announcing our arrival at the fourteenth floor.

The doors slid open to reveal a dimly lit corridor lined with dark wood paneling and thick navy carpet. I grabbed Leo’s hand and hurried down the hallway until I found room 1402. The brass door plate had a custom emblem etched into the metal below the numbers—a stylized crest of a sun rising over a cresting wave.

I pulled back the collar of Leo’s shirt. On his left shoulder blade sat a distinct, raised birthmark in the exact, identical shape of that rising sun.

My mind reeled, a dizzying void opening up beneath my feet. Before I could process the impossibility of it, I pressed the key card to the door lock. It clicked, and the heavy door swung inward.

The room was pitch black, the blackout curtains drawn tight against the afternoon sun.

«Light,» a familiar, low voice rasped from the darkness.

I reached out and slammed my palm against the wall switch. Recessed ceiling lights flickered to life, illuminating a modest suite littered with computer monitors, printed photographs, and wall-sized maps covered in red string.

Sitting in an armchair in the center of the room, tied securely with heavy yellow utility zip-ties, was the stranger in the white linen shirt. His nose was bleeding, but he was staring past me, his eyes locked on the open door behind us.

«You shouldn’t have come here,» he breathed, his chest heaving. «It was a trap.»

From behind the bathroom door, a quiet step sounded against the hardwood floor.

I spun around, pulling Leo behind my back.

A woman stepped out into the light. She was dressed in a pristine white surgical coat, holding a silver syringe filled with clear fluid. Her face was identical to mine—every curve, every faint freckle, every detail—as if I were staring into a flawless mirror.

She smiled gently, her voice an exact, terrifying duplicate of my own.

«Welcome home, Number Four,» she said, raising the syringe. «It’s time to reset.»