Even though she gazed at him, a man who exuded such restraint, she couldn’t shake the feeling that he always seemed unsatisfied, as if something was missing in him. Were his desires really so different from his wife’s?
Sienna had suffered intensely, and the cold rain had taken its toll. The next day, she fell ill.
She lay in bed, her body heavy with exhaustion, but her thoughts kept drifting back to her child. She urged the man to leave and return home, but Elijah’s expression remained serious.
“I’m not going back today,” he said flatly.
She assumed he hadn’t had enough of her company, so with a frustrated grimace, she insisted, “I have to go back. I need to see the baby.”
His gaze darkened, and his voice dropped seriously. “Something’s happened to your brother.”
The words didn’t quite register at first. "What do you mean? What happened to Gavin?"
He was gone.
Gavin had been involved in a fight with criminals in prison and had been stabbed in the neck with a sharpened toothbrush. He bled out before he could be saved.
Sienna had no other family, and so Elijah accompanied her to the morgue to identify the body.
The body had already been prepared, the blood drained from his lifeless form. Gavin’s features, so familiar and handsome, remained unchanged, but the unnatural pallor of his skin made him look almost unreal. If it weren’t for the cold, ashen color of his complexion, she might have sworn he’d open his eyes and call out her name.
"Gavin!" she cried, her voice breaking as she rushed forward to hold his body.
Her last family member, her final piece of hope, was gone.
She continued to shake him, her mind refusing to accept the reality of it. They had just spoken yesterday. How could he be gone? He had to be playing some cruel trick on her, like he always did. Her brother, the master of mischief, wouldn’t just vanish.
Watching her sob uncontrollably, Elijah stood frozen. He squeezed his fists by his side, torn between sympathy and helplessness. Finally, he called Liam, instructing her to come in and pull Sienna away.
“Miss Clark,” Liam’s voice was soft but firm. “There is no resurrection after death. Please forgive me.”
Sienna lifted her tear-soaked face and met Elijah’s eyes, her gaze filled with raw, desperate pain. “You promised you’d take care of him. You promised you’d make him better…”
Elijah pulled her into his arms, his voice heavy with regret. "I'm sorry."
Sienna pushed against him, her fists pounding on his chest in a frantic attempt to break free. "You killed my brother! You’re the one who caused this! It was a traffic accident, but you insisted on sending him to prison! You killed him!"
Elijah's expression grew colder, his arms tightening around her in an effort to prevent her from hurting herself—or him.
Sienna’s cries began to subside, her body shaking with exhaustion. She looked up at him, her eyes hollow, broken. "Elijah," she whispered, her voice hoarse. "I can’t do this anymore."
He stared at her, confusion flickering across his face. "What do you mean?"
"I won’t be a nanny anymore. I’m leaving the Morgan Family... I’m leaving you."
