Page 86 of Omega's Formula

“Hey,” I say, smiling. “Everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine.” But there’s something in her voice. Something careful. “I just—I need to tell you something, and I don’t want you to freak out.”

My stomach drops. “What happened?”

“Nothing happened. I mean, nothing bad. It’s just—” She takes a breath. “Erik came to see me.”

The world goes very still.

“What?”

“He showed up at the hospital. A few days after you left.” She’s talking fast now, like she’s afraid I’ll hang up before she can finish. “He was looking for you. He said he needed to talk to you, that it was important. I told him I didn’t know where you were.”

“Ellie—”

“I didn’t tell him anything, Nolan. I promise. I said you’d left town and I didn’t know where, and that’s all I said.” She pauses. “But he keeps coming back.”

“What do you mean he keeps coming back?”

“He visits. Every few days. He says he wants to make sure I’m okay, that the treatment is going well. He brings—” She laughs, a little helplessly. “He brought me flowers last time. And those cookies from that bakery I like. The expensive ones.”

I don’t understand. This doesn’t make sense. Erik evicted me without warning, looked at me like I was something he’d scraped off his shoe, made it clear I meant nothing to him.

Why would he be visiting my sister?

“I don’t know what his angle is,” Ellie continues. “But I wanted you to know. In case—I don’t know. In case he finds you somehow.”

“He won’t find me.” My voice comes out steadier than I feel. “There’s no trail. I made sure of it.”

“Okay. Good.” She’s quiet for a moment. “Nolan... he seems different. I don’t know how to explain it. He’s still him—still intense and kind of scary—but there’s something else there now. He looks at me like he’s looking for answers, and I think the questions are all about you.”

I close my eyes. Press my hand against my stomach.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “Whatever he’s playing at, it doesn’t matter. He made his choice. I made mine.”

“But what if—”

“Ellie.” My voice comes out sharper than I intended. I take a breath, soften it. “I can’t. I can’t do this. Not now. I need to focus on—” I almost say the baby. I catch myself just in time. “—on getting settled. On building something here. I can’t spend my energy wondering what Erik Nilsson is thinking or feeling.”

She’s quiet for a long moment. “Okay. I understand.” A pause. “I love you, you know. Whatever happens.”

“I love you too.”

We hang up, and I sit there in my small room in my borrowed life, trying to process what she’s told me.

Erik is looking for me.

The part of me that’s still, despite everything, bound to him by chemistry and want and something that might have been love—that part flares to life, desperate and hungry. He’s looking. He cares enough to look.

But then I remember the contract I signed. The clause about custody. The way he looked at me in that Bureau meeting, like I was nothing.

He knows. He must know about the baby—why else would he suddenly be interested? And if he knows, then he’s not looking for me because he cares. He’s looking because of the clause. Because he wants what I signed away when I was desperate and stupid and believed things might somehow work out.

I will not let him take my child.

22. Erik

I was wrong. About all of it.