CHAPTER 3 THE CHASE THROUGH THE STORM

A black sedan was parked across the street.

Engine running.

Headlights dimmed.

Waiting.

Her heart somersaulted.

He was already there.

He hadn’t chased her down the hallway.

Hadn’t followed her through the apartment.

He had simply known where she would run.

“Elara Voss.”

The stranger stepped out of the driver’s seat, coat draped like a shadow around him.

He didn’t rush her.

He didn’t approach.

He simply stood under the streetlight, watching her with unreadable eyes.

“Get away from me,” Elara whispered, clutching her belly as she backed away.

He took one slow step forward.

“Damien is coming for you.”

Her breath shattered in her lungs.

“And I’m the only one who can keep you alive.”

Elara’s entire body went cold.

“You…” she stammered, “you work for him?”

“No,” he said quietly, almost too sincerely. “Not anymore.”

The wind whipped between them, carrying the faint scent of rain and metal. His coat billowed, his gaze never leaving her.

“Elara.”

He lowered his voice to something dark and intimate.

“You need to trust me.”

“No.” The word tore from her throat. “I don’t trust anyone from Damien’s world.”

His jaw tensed.

“For what it’s worth… I left Damien’s world because of you.”

Her heart stuttered.

She stared at him, confused, frightened, trembling.

“What does that even mean?” she whispered.

The stranger looked at her with eyes that held too many secrets.

“It means,” he murmured, “that you’re not ready to hear the truth yet.”

Elara’s pulse thundered painfully.

Footsteps echoed behind her, neighbors coming down the hall, the sound bouncing down toward the street.

The stranger’s eyes flicked upward.

Panic flashed across his face for the first time.

“Elara”

Then a voice broke through the night.

“Elara Voss!”

A shout.

A man’s voice.

Deep. Familiar.

Her blood froze.

Damien’s men.

The stranger moved instantly.

“Elara, RUN!”

She didn’t think…

She didn’t look…

She didn’t breathe…

She simply bolted into the street, sprinting past the stranger, past the black sedan, into the darkness before the familiar nightmare could swallow her whole again.

The street swallowed Elara whole.

Her feet pounded the pavement, breath slicing through her chest as she sprinted into the wet, icy darkness. The city was waking, dim lights flickering in apartment windows, car engines growling distantly, but the street she ran down felt deserted, hollow, stripped bare.

Rain hammered the ground like a threat.

“Elara!” a voice bellowed from behind her.

Not the stranger.

Not the man from the elevator.

This voice was colder.

Harder.

A soldier’s voice.

Damien’s voice by proxy.

Elara pushed herself faster, gripping her belly as she ran. Her lungs burned, her breath coming in sharp, frantic gasps. 

A flash of headlights swept over her, another black sedan turning the corner, accelerating.

No.

No no no.

She darted down the nearest alley.

Narrow.

Dark.

Filled with the distant hiss of leaking pipes.

Her jacket snagged on a metal railing. She ripped free, stumbling forward.

“Elara!”

Closer now.

Her pulse roared in her ears.

She reached the end of the alley, skidding onto a side street only to freeze.

Another man.

Another black coat.

Another shadow moving toward her.

Not the stranger.

This one was broader.

Faster.

Trained.

She turned back, two more shadows closing in.

Her throat closed.

She was boxed in.

Damien hadn’t wasted a second.

He’d sent his men to retrieve her.

Alive…

or in whatever condition he found acceptable.

“Elara Voss,” the nearest man called, his voice steady, almost bored. “Don’t make this difficult.”

Her pulse rattled violently.

The three men moved closer, steps synchronized like predators who’d done this a thousand times.

She backed away

only to collide with something solid.

Someone.

A hand clamped around her arm—firm, warm, strong.

She gasped and spun.

The stranger.

The man from the elevator.

The one who whispered her name.

The one who claimed to have left Damien’s world for her.

His eyes locked onto hers, dark, intense, burning with a frightening mix of calculation and protectiveness.

“Stay behind me,” he said.

No hesitation.

No doubt.

He stepped forward, placing himself between Elara and the approaching men.

One of them sneered.

“You shouldn’t have come back, Ward.”

Ward?

Elara’s breath stilled.

The stranger, Lucian Ward tilted his head slightly, rain sliding from his black coat in thin rivers.

“You’re in my way,” he said quietly.

“You left the Hale family,” the man snarled. “That makes you a target.”

Lucian’s voice dropped, low and lethal.

“I’m used to being hunted.”

A pause.

“But I don’t appreciate being interrupted.”

And then everything exploded.

The first man lunged.

Lucian moved faster.

A flash of motion… sickening crack

The man hit the pavement, gasping, clutching his throat.

The second man swung, but Lucian dodged effortlessly, grabbed his arm, twisted another brutal snap.

The third man froze, uncertainty flickering across his face.

Lucian stepped toward him.

The man fled.

Elara’s breath tore from her lungs.

It had taken Lucian less than ten seconds.

He turned toward her, chest rising with controlled breaths, rain dripping from the strands of his dark hair.

“Elara,” he said urgently, “we have to go. Now.”

Her entire body shook.

“You—” she whispered, voice trembling. “Why did you help me? You don’t even know me.”

Lucian stepped closer, eyes locked with hers.

“I know enough.”

Her heart stumbled.

“Damien wants control,” Lucian said softly. “But someone like you? You don’t break easily. And men like him… they hate losing ownership of the things they believe they deserve.”

Her stomach twisted.

Ownership.

She had lived that word.

Suffered under it.

Escaped it.

“You think I belong to him?” she whispered.

Lucian’s expression hardened.

“No.”

His voice dropped to something raw.

“Not anymore.”

Lightning tore across the sky.

Sirens wailed in the distance.

Lucian’s gaze tracked the streets quickly, calculating escape routes.

“Elara, we don’t have time. If Damien sent the first crew, the second won’t be far behind.”

Her hands trembled.

Her heartbeat thundered.

Her unborn daughter shifted beneath her palm.

“You can’t go back to your apartment,” Lucian said.

“You can’t go to a hotel.”

“You can’t contact anyone, not yet.”

Elara swallowed, breath shaking.

“Then where do I go?”

Lucian held her gaze for a long, quiet moment.

“To a place Damien can’t reach you.”

Her pulse fluttered in her throat.

“And where is that?” she whispered.

Lucian’s jaw tightened.

“With me.”

Elara’s breath caught.

The street felt suddenly too silent.

Too fragile.

Too dangerous.

She stared at Lucian Ward, the man she should fear, the man she didn’t understand, the man who fought Damien’s trained operatives like he’d been born for it and her heart twisted with a warning she didn’t know how to obey.

Trusting him could save her life.

Or ruin it completely.

“Elara,” he murmured, stepping closer, lowering his voice into something dark and sincere, “choose now. Them…”

He jerked his chin down the street where distant footsteps echoed.

“…or me.”

Her heart pounded.

Her fate balanced on a single breath.

And when she exhaled, the truth came out in a whisper she couldn’t stop

“I choose you.”

Lucian’s eyes flared, just slightly but enough for her to see the storm brewing behind his calm exterior.

He took her hand.

“Then stay close, Elara.”

And together, they ran.