The phone call from Viktor Reeves had lasted exactly thirty-seven seconds before the line went dead, leaving behind only his chilling promise to "explain everything soon." But those thirty-seven seconds had been enough to shatter what remained of the fragile peace between Adelina and Nathan.
Now they stood in their bedroom at the safe house, the space that had once been their sanctuary feeling more like a battlefield. Nathan paced by the window while Adelina sat on the edge of the bed, both of them radiating the kind of tension that made the air itself feel combustible.
"You didn't even hesitate," Nathan said for the third time, his voice tight with barely controlled anger. "He calls—a man who supposedly died in front of us—and you just... answer. No discussion, no strategy, nothing."
"What was I supposed to do?" Adelina shot back, exhaustion bleeding through her voice. "Ignore it? Pretend it wasn't happening? We both heard his voice, Nathan. That was Viktor."
"Or someone pretending to be Viktor, just like someone was pretending to be Adriana." Nathan stopped pacing and turned to face her. "How do you not see the pattern here? Someone is playing us, manipulating us, and you keep walking right into their traps."
"Because they're not traps!" Adelina stood up abruptly, her hands clenched into fists. "They're cries for help. Adriana needed us. Whatever Viktor wants to tell us, we need to hear it. This isn't about walking into traps—it's about facing the truth, even when it's uncomfortable."
"And what about us?" Nathan's voice cracked on the question. "What about facing the truth of what this is doing to our relationship? You've barely looked at me—really looked at me—since Adriana arrived. It's like the moment you found someone who shares your experience, I became... irrelevant."
The accusation hung between them like a physical blow. Adelina stared at him, seeing the hurt and fear he'd been trying to hide beneath his anger.
"That's not true," she whispered, but even as she said it, she could hear the uncertainty in her own voice.
"Isn't it?" Nathan moved closer, his eyes searching her face. "When was the last time you asked me how I was doing? When was the last time you seemed to care about anything other than Project Eden and saving your sisters and figuring out who's real and who's fake?"
"That's not fair—"
"Fair?" Nathan's laugh was bitter. "You want to talk about fair? Is it fair that I fell in love with a woman who's now questioning whether her feelings for me are even real? Is it fair that every time we take a step forward, some new crisis arrives to drag us backward?"
Adelina flinched as if he'd slapped her. "I never said my feelings weren't real."
"You didn't have to. It's written all over your face every time you look at me now. You're wondering if you're programmed to love me, if your attraction is artificial, if everything we've built together is just... elaborate coding."
The truth of his words hit her like a physical blow because he was right. Ever since learning about the other clones, about the possibility that their memories and personalities were amalgamations of stolen consciousness, she had been questioning everything—including her love for Nathan.
"I don't know what's real anymore," she admitted quietly, the confession torn from her throat. "I don't know if I love you because I was designed to, or because I chose to, or because some dead woman's memories are influencing my feelings. How do I separate what's me from what's programming from what's borrowed from someone else's life?"
Nathan went very still. "So that's it then. You're done with us. With me."
"I'm not done with anything!" Adelina's voice rose to nearly a shout. "I'm trying to figure out who I am, Nathan. I'm trying to understand what's real in a world where nothing about my existence is natural or normal. And yes, sometimes that means questioning things I've taken for granted—including us."
"And meanwhile, what am I supposed to do? Just... wait around while you decide if your feelings for me are worth keeping?"
"I don't know!" The words exploded out of her with all the frustration and confusion she'd been carrying. "I don't know what you're supposed to do, just like I don't know what I'm supposed to do. All I know is that I can't pretend everything is fine when it's not. I can't go back to playing house when there are women out there who need help, who need someone to fight for them."
"And I can't keep pretending it doesn't kill me every time you choose them over me," Nathan replied, his voice deadly quiet.
The silence that followed was deafening. They stared at each other across the small space between them, and Adelina could practically see the chasm opening wider with each passing second.
"Maybe..." Nathan cleared his throat, his business mask sliding back into place. "Maybe we both need some space to think."
Adelina's chest tightened with panic, but she nodded. "Maybe we do."
Nathan gathered his things with efficient, emotionless movements—his laptop, a change of clothes, his phone charger. The domestic normalcy of watching him pack made the whole situation feel surreal, like they were just any other couple having any other fight instead of two people whose entire relationship was built on impossible circumstances.
"I'll take the guest room down the hall," he said without looking at her.
"Nathan..." she started, but didn't know how to finish.
He paused at the door, his hand on the handle. "For what it's worth, Adelina, I never cared whether your feelings were programmed or natural or borrowed from someone else. I only cared that they were yours. That you chose to give them to me."
The door closed behind him with a soft click that sounded as final as a gunshot.
Adelina sank onto the bed, finally allowing the tears she'd been holding back to fall. This was what she'd been terrified of from the beginning—that getting too close to Nathan would mean inevitable heartbreak when reality intruded. She just hadn't expected the heartbreak to feel like this, like someone had reached into her chest and torn out something vital.
A soft knock at the door interrupted her spiraling thoughts. "Adelina?" Adriana's voice was hesitant. "May I come in?"
"It's open," Adelina called, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
Adriana slipped inside, followed by Sebastian, who looked deeply uncomfortable but determined. They both settled on the small couch by the window, leaving space for her to join them if she wanted.
"We heard," Adriana said gently. "I'm sorry. This is my fault, isn't it? My being here has caused problems between you two."
"No," Adelina said firmly. "This isn't your fault. These problems... they were already there. You just brought them to the surface."
Sebastian leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "Nathan's scared," he said bluntly. "I've never seen him like this—so out of control, so desperate. He loves you more than he's ever loved anything, and he doesn't know how to compete with something as big as existential crisis and sisterhood and saving the world."
"He shouldn't have to compete," Adelina replied miserably. "That's the whole point. Love shouldn't be a competition."
"But isn't it always, to some degree?" Adriana asked quietly. "Competing with work, with family, with the past, with other people's needs? The question is whether the people involved are willing to keep choosing each other despite the competition."
Adelina looked at her sister—because that's what Adriana was, really, the closest thing to a sister she'd ever known—and saw her own fears reflected back.
"What if I'm not capable of choosing?" Adelina whispered. "What if whatever programming made me love him also makes it impossible for me to prioritize that love when other things demand my attention?"
"Then you figure it out," Sebastian said with surprising gentleness. "Together. That's what love is—figuring it out as you go, even when it's messy and complicated and nothing like what you thought it would be."
They talked for another hour, the three of them curled together on the couch like survivors of some great catastrophe. Which, Adelina supposed, they were. By the time Sebastian and Adriana finally left her alone, she felt marginally more human and significantly less broken.
But the bed felt enormous and cold without Nathan's warmth beside her, and sleep was a long time coming.
The next morning, Adelina woke to the sound of her phone buzzing insistently on the nightstand. She grabbed it groggily, expecting another cryptic message or emergency alert.
Instead, she found dozens of notifications—photos, all from Nathan's private account. Her heart hammered as she scrolled through them, each image more breathtaking than the last.
The first was a sunrise over the ocean, taken from what looked like the deck of a yacht. The caption read: "Day 1 without you feels like this—beautiful but empty."
The second showed a small island in the distance, pristine and untouched. "Remember our paradise? I bought another one. This one's bigger. Room for sisters, for family, for whatever complicated life we build together."
The third was a close-up of his hands holding a small velvet box. Adelina's breath caught in her throat as she read: "I was going to wait for the perfect moment. Then I realized we don't get perfect moments—we make them."
Her phone rang before she could process what she was seeing. Nathan's name flashed on the screen.
"Nathan?" she answered breathlessly.
"Look outside," he said, his voice warm with the first genuine smile she'd heard from him in days.
Adelina rushed to the window and looked down at the street below. Nathan stood beside a sleek black car, dressed in the dark blue suit she'd bought him for their six-month anniversary, holding a massive bouquet of white peonies—her favorite flowers, though she'd never told him that.
"What are you doing?" she asked, pressing her hand to the glass.
"Fighting for us," he said simply. "Fighting for you. Fighting for the right to be part of whatever comes next, even if it's complicated and messy and nothing like what either of us expected."
Tears stung her eyes as she took in the sight of him—her husband, her anchor, the man who'd chosen to love her despite everything artificial and impossible about her existence.
"Nathan, I—"
"Marry me," he interrupted, his voice rough with emotion. "I know we're already married, but marry me again. Choose me again. Choose us again, knowing everything we know now about who you are and who I am and what we're up against."
Adelina was already moving, grabbing her robe and racing for the stairs, her heart pounding with something that felt suspiciously like hope.
She burst through the front door of the safe house just as Nathan was pulling the ring from the velvet box—not the simple band she'd worn as part of their arrangement, but something new, something that sparkled with the promise of forever.
"Yes," she breathed, launching herself into his arms with enough force to nearly knock them both over. "Yes, yes, a thousand times yes."
Nathan spun her around, both of them laughing and crying at the same time, and for a moment the world narrowed to just the two of them and the impossible, beautiful, complicated love they'd chosen despite everything.
He was sliding the ring onto her finger when Adelina's phone buzzed with an incoming text. She almost ignored it—nothing was more important than this moment, this choice, this recommitment to their future together.
But something made her glance at the screen, and the blood drained from her face as she read the message:
"Congratulations on your engagement. Again. You both look so happy. It would be a shame if something were to happen to ruin such a perfect moment. —E.G."
Attached was a photo that made Adelina's knees buckle: Nathan, down on one knee in front of the safe house, taken from an impossible angle that suggested the photographer had been very, very close.
"Nathan," she whispered, showing him the phone with trembling hands.
His face went white as he read the message, then quickly scanned the surrounding buildings and rooftops. "Get inside. Now."
But it was too late. As they turned toward the safe house, they found their path blocked by a familiar figure stepping out of the shadows.
Elise Gavrila smiled at them with predatory satisfaction, flanked by six men in dark suits.
"Hello, children," she said pleasantly. "I hope you don't mind the interruption. But we really do need to talk."