(Ophelia's POV)

The beeping of the hospital monitor had become the soundtrack of our lives.

Liora lay in the clean white bed, her small body looking even smaller against the machines surrounding her. Kidney failure. Those two words had destroyed everything we had.

"Mommy," Liora whispered. Her voice was barely audible over the steady rhythm of the machines.

"Do you think Daddy will come tomorrow?"

I smoothed the few thin strands of hair away from her forehead. She had lost so much of it from the treatments.

"Of course, baby. Tomorrow is your birthday."

"And we'll go to the Moonlight Market? All three of us together?"

Hope flickered in her green eyes. They were exactly like mine, those eyes. Same shape, same color, same way of holding onto things that might not be worth holding onto.

"Yes, Liora. I already asked him. He promised."

I forced a smile and pushed down the doubt that kept rising in my chest like cold water.

The next morning, the air was brutal. A sharp, biting cold that cut through everything.

I dressed Liora in her thickest coat, wrapped a scarf around her neck, and pulled her hat down over her ears. She was so excited she could barely sit still while I buttoned her up.

We arrived at the entrance to the Moonlight Market and waited.

One hour passed.

Then two.

Liora's lips turned faintly purple from the cold, but she kept insisting that Daddy was just held up at work. She kept watching the entrance, craning her neck every time someone walked through.

By the third hour, she refused to sit in the wheelchair I had brought.

"I want to stand," she said firmly. "So Daddy can see me right away when he gets here."

Her voice cracked on the last word.

Then she turned to me, and her eyes were wet.

"Mommy, did Daddy forget? Or is he with Elara again?"

The question hit me like a blow to the chest.

I dialed Elias's number. My hands were shaking from more than just the cold.

The call connected, but it wasn't Elias who answered. It was his deputy.

"Mrs. Carter," the man said carefully. "Mr. Carter is currently unavailable."

"Where is he?" I asked, keeping my voice even for Liora's sake.

There was a pause. Then, quietly, the deputy told me.

Elias was at Disneyland. With Vivienne. And her daughter Elara. A special celebration, the deputy called it.

I turned slightly away from Liora so she couldn't see my face.

"Today is Liora's birthday," I said, my voice dropping to almost nothing. "She is standing outside in the cold right now, waiting for her father."

"I'm very sorry, Mrs. Carter. Mr. Carter left strict orders. No interruptions. No exceptions."

I hung up.

When I turned back around, Liora was already watching me. She had heard enough.

Before I could say a single word, she collapsed.

Her small body hit the frozen ground, and she was shaking, her breathing rapid and shallow, her lips barely moving.

I screamed for help. I screamed until strangers came running.

The ambulance. The hospital. The doctors moving fast around her bed.

I stood outside the glass and watched their faces, and I already knew. I had known the moment she fell. There are some things a mother's body understands before her mind is ready to accept them.

Liora's organs were shutting down.

They let me in to be beside her. I held her hand, which was so cold and so light.

She opened her eyes one last time.

"Mommy," she breathed. "Why does Daddy love Elara more than me? Is it because I'm sick?"

Tears ran down my face and I could not answer her. I had no answer. There was no answer that would not break her.

Then her phone slipped out of her coat pocket and clattered onto the floor. The screen lit up.

Someone had sent her a video.

It played automatically. The sound filled the quiet room.

Elias's laugh. Loud and unguarded, the way I had not heard it in years. He had Elara up on his shoulders, and she was shrieking with delight, her arms spread wide. Vivienne stood beside him, her hand wrapped tightly around his arm, her head tilted back with laughter.

Behind them, stretched across the entrance of Disneyland, was a massive banner.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMMA.

Liora stared at the screen.

"I just wanted him to love me," she said softly.

She closed her eyes.

The monitor screamed.

My daughter was gone, and her father had not even been there to say goodbye.

The funeral home was very quiet. Only the sound of my own crying, which I could not stop no matter how hard I pressed my hand against my mouth.

I stood alone beside the cremation table and looked at Liora's still face. She looked peaceful. She looked like she was sleeping.

One of the staff members approached me gently.

"Will the others be coming?" he asked. "We expected Mr. Carter to be here."

"He doesn't know," I said. My voice came out flat. Empty. "He's at Disneyland. Celebrating the birthday of the woman he loves and her daughter. Using the party he promised Liora."

The man stared at me. He didn't speak for a long moment.

Then he nodded quietly and stepped back.

I reached into my bag and took out a small hair clip. I had spent months making it. Moonlight stone, carefully set in a delicate frame, the kind of stone said to carry protection. I had made it for Liora's birthday. I had thought, foolishly, that it might help keep her safe.

I clipped it into her hair with trembling hands.

"I'm sorry," I whispered to her. "I'm sorry none of it was enough."

The flames began. I stood alone and watched them take her.

The drive home was slow. Traffic had come to a complete standstill on the highway.

I sat in the back seat with the small wooden box in my arms, held tight against my chest. It was still warm. I don't know if that was real or if I only imagined it because I needed it to be.

We were stopped directly in front of Disneyland.

The giant screen on the outer wall was broadcasting a news segment. The anchor's voice came through clearly from a nearby car's open window.

Elias Carter, Alpha of the Carter Pack, had booked the entire park for a private birthday celebration.

The footage showed him lifting Elara onto his shoulders, the same image from the video on Liora's phone, but larger now, impossible to look away from. Vivienne beside him, holding his arm. Both of them laughing.

Elara was wearing a dress. A pale blue princess gown with a full skirt that caught the light.

I recognized it immediately.

Liora had seen that dress in a catalog eight months ago. She had pointed at it and said, very quietly, that it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. She had asked Elias just once.

He had said no. He said a sick child had no reason to go anywhere that required a dress like that. He said it was a waste of money.

I turned the wooden box away from the screen. I pressed it against my shoulder so that the opening faced the other direction.

"Don't look, baby," I whispered. "Don't look."

When I finally got home, I carried the box upstairs to Liora's room.

I sat on her bed. I held the box in my lap and did not put it down. The room still smelled like her. Her drawings were still pinned to the wall. Her stuffed rabbit was still propped against her pillow.

I sat there through the night and into the morning, not moving, not sleeping.

Then the bedroom door opened.

Elias stood in the doorway. He was still wearing the same clothes from yesterday. He looked impatient, already distracted by something else.

"Where's Liora?" he said. "We have an appointment today. That specialist flying in from Europe. Get her ready, we need to leave soon."

I stared at him.

Something inside me that had been holding on for a very long time finally broke completely apart.

I stood up slowly. I walked toward him and held out the box.

"This is Liora," I said.

He stepped back. His brow furrowed.

"Stop being dramatic, Ophelia. I don't have time for this. Where is she, actually?"

"Liora is dead!" My voice broke open and filled the whole house. "Where exactly are you planning to pick her up from? Hell?"

The color drained from his face, but his expression stayed hard.

"That's not funny. I'm not doing this with you right now."

"She died on her birthday," I said, and my voice was shaking so badly I could barely form the words. "While you were at Disneyland with Vivienne and Elara. While you were buying Elara the dress you told Liora was too expensive for a sick child."

Elias turned away from me and walked toward the stairs.

"You're being completely unreasonable. I'll find Liora myself."

He was at the top of the staircase when his phone rang.

He answered it immediately. His whole body changed. His shoulders dropped, his jaw unclenched, and his voice came out soft and warm in a way I had not heard directed at anyone in this house for a very long time.

"Elara? What's wrong, sweetheart?"

A little girl's voice floated up and filled the hallway. Sweet and bright and full of easy expectation.

"Daddy, I missed you. Can you come be with me?"