Chapter 255. The Stalker-Wing

The architect’s model was a work of art, a crystalline vision rendered in frosted acrylic and brushed steel. It depicted the new east wing of the Rogers Industries headquarters not as an addition, but as an integration—a seamless, soaring extension of glass and light, connected to the main tower by a breathtaking, multi-story atrium dubbed "The Nexus."

Anton stood beside the model in his office, a rare, unguarded smile playing on his lips. Sabatine was late, held up by a final security sweep of the construction site perimeter. He’d told her it was a routine update on the build. That was technically true.

When the office door finally swished open, she entered with her customary efficient energy, a tablet tucked under her arm, her hair slightly windswept from the autumn breeze on the building site. Her eyes went immediately to the model, a professional curiosity lighting her features.

“Perimeter’s secure. The new bio-metric scanners are giving the contractors hell, but they’re working.” She came to stand beside him, studying the miniature structure. “It’s beautiful, Anton. The atrium alone… it’s a statement. Openness. Connection. The opposite of everything this place used to be.”

“That’s the idea,” he said, looking at her profile. “It’s to house the new integrated Security Command Centre, the Ethics and Transparency division, and the Advanced Futures research team. The physical manifestation of our new pillars.”

“A fortress that doesn’t look like one,” she mused, leaning closer to peer at the tiny interior details. “I like it.”

This was the moment. His heart, absurdly, hammered against his ribs. He took a controlled breath. “There’s one more detail. The naming committee and the board have finally approved the official designation for the wing.” He paused, ensuring he had her full attention. “It’s to be called the Stalker-Wing.”

For a full three seconds, there was only the faint hum of the office’s climate control.

Sabatine’s head snapped towards him, her professional composure evaporating. Her eyes, wide with disbelief, searched his face for a sign this was an elaborate, deeply unfunny joke. Finding none, a storm of emotions flashed across her features: shock, horror, a flicker of profound embarrassment, and then, rising like a tide, pure, unadulterated outrage.

“You did what?”

“The Stalker-Wing,” he repeated, the name sounding even more monumental spoken aloud in the space between them. “In recognition of the unparalleled contribution to this company’s security, integrity, and very survival. A permanent, architectural testament.”

“A testament?” Her voice climbed half an octave. “Anton, you cannot name a multi-million-pound, glass-and-steel phallus after me! That is the most grotesque, egotistical, insane thing I have ever heard! Un-name it. Right now. Tell them you’ve developed a sudden, severe allergy to stupidity.”

He’d anticipated resistance. He’d even anticipated her anger. But the sheer, visceral horror was more delightful than he’d imagined. A laugh, low and irrepressible, bubbled up in his chest. “The board was unanimous, Sabe. Even Thorne. He said it had a ‘no-nonsense, tactical ring to it.’”

“Thorne is trying to get revenge for beating his ass in hand-to-hand drills fifteen years ago!” She threw her hands up, the tablet forgotten on the edge of his desk. “This isn’t a legacy, it’s a… a neon billboard for my insecurities! ‘Stalker-Wing.’ It sounds like a place where people go to lurk in bushes! Every new hire, every journalist, every tourist on the bloody viewing platform will say it. ‘Shall we meet in the Stalker-Wing?’ ‘The leak is coming from the Stalker-Wing!’ It’s mortifying!”

She began to pace, a caged panther in a tailored suit. “Do you have any idea what my life was before you? ‘Stalker’ was a callsign in a system that discarded me. It was a name on fake IDs in border towns. It’s not something you etch in granite on a headquarters!”

He let her vent, the laughter still dancing in his eyes. This was the woman who had faced down armed conspirators without blinking, now utterly unravelled by a plaque. It was the most human he had ever seen her.

“It’s not the callsign,” he said softly, when her pacing brought her back to him. “It’s the person who bore it. The person who stalked the truth when everyone else was content with lies. Who stalked a path back to her own humanity. Who stalks the perimeter of my life—” he reached out, catching her wrist gently as she tried to wave him off, “—and keeps everything that matters safe inside.”

She froze, his words cutting through the outrage. She stared at their joined hands, then back at his face, her breath coming quickly.

“It’s not a memorial to a shadow,” he continued, his thumb stroking the inside of her wrist. “It’s a foundation for a future. Your future. Woven into the DNA of this place. So that long after we’re both gone, people will walk through that atrium and know that this company was saved, and reborn, because of a woman who refused to look away. They might not know your whole story, but they’ll know your name means integrity. It meant that this place stood for something real.”

The fight was leaving her, replaced by a bewildered, vulnerable confusion. “It’s… too much, Anton. I don’t need a building.”

“I know you don’t,”he said. “But this city, this industry, does. It needs a reminder that heroes don’t always wear capes. Sometimes they wear tactical gear, and sometimes,” he allowed a small smirk, “they threaten to throw billionaires out of windows when they make grand, romantic gestures.”

The reminder of her earlier, hyperbolic threat brought a fresh wave of frustration to her face. She pulled her wrist from his grasp and stalked to the floor-to-ceiling window, looking out at the skeletal steel frame of the very wing in question, rising beside the main tower. “I should. It’s not too late. A little push. A tragic accident. ‘Billionaire falls while admiring the view, suspiciously soon after naming the building after his girlfriend.’ The press would have a field day.”

He came to stand behind her, not touching her, but close enough that she could feel his presence. “You won’t.”

“How do you know?”

“Because you’ve spent the last six months designing every security feature in that building.The windows are three-inch, polycarbonate laminate. They’re rated to withstand a truck bomb. You’d break my fist before you cracked the glass.”

A reluctant, choked sound escaped her—half a sob, half a laugh. She leaned her forehead against the cool, impenetrable window. “You’re impossible.”

“And you,”he said, his voice dropping to a whisper near her ear, “are indelible. You changed the course of this company. You changed the course of me. Let me etch that into the skyline. Not for your ego. For mine. So I never forget what, and who, made this new beginning possible.”

She was silent for a long time, watching the construction cranes pivot like slow-motion ballet dancers against the grey sky. The initial shock and horror were melting, undercut by the fierce, undeniable love in his words. He wasn’t just honouring her; he was anchoring himself to her, in the most public, permanent way he could conceive.

Finally, she spoke, her voice husky. “The Security Command Centre. My team. They’ll never let me hear the end of this.”

“They’ll be proud,”he corrected. “And they’ll work in the most secure, cutting-edge facility in the world, named for the person who made it her mission to protect them, too.”

She turned then, her back against the window, searching his face. The outrage was gone. In its place was a dazed, overwhelmed acceptance, and beneath that, a deep, glowing warmth. “The Stalker-Wing,” she said, testing the name again, this time without the screech. It has settled differently now. Not as a callsign, but as a title. A belonging.

“Yes,” he said simply.

She reached up, her hand curling around the back of his neck, pulling him down until their foreheads touched. “You are the most infuriating, extravagant, sentimental man on the planet.”

“I know,”he murmured, his lips brushing hers. “But I’m yours.”

This time, when she kissed him, it was an answer. A surrender to the grand, ridiculous, magnificent scale of his love. It was a yes to the future, to the legacy, to the building that would forever bear a name that once meant a shadow, and now would mean a sanctuary.

When they parted, she looked over his shoulder at the architect’s model, a slow, real smile finally touching her lips. “Fine. But if I have to have a wing, I want a say in the espresso machine in the Command Centre. And it had better be industrial-grade.”

Anton’s laughter echoed through the office, a sound of pure, triumphant joy. The Stalker-Wing was no longer just a plan in acrylic. It was a promise, accepted. And as he held her, with the proof of their intertwined destiny taking shape in steel and glass outside the window, he knew no threat, no encrypted ghost from the past, could ever shake a foundation this solid, this truly, wonderfully theirs.

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