chapter 8: THE RISKS

No answer at first. Then the lock turned and she stood there, phone in hand with a pale face.

“Another call from the shop. Ingredients missing, Customers complaining. This is your world biting me again, isn’t it?”

“I’m fixing it,” he said. “My people are on the suppliers. The clinic. All of it.”

She crossed her arms, phone gripped tight against her side. “Fixing it how? By controlling more? I don’t know who to believe anymore. Your mother, Vanessa, Marcus, you. everyone has an angle. How do I know you’re not part of it?”

The words landed like a punch. Damian stepped inside the room without waiting for permission. “Because those are my children too. I’m terrified of losing them.” His voice came out rougher than he meant. He looked away for a second, then back at her. “I don’t do fear well. Never had to. But watching those scans today… I can’t lose them.”

Chloe’s grip on her arms loosened a fraction, but she still held herself distant. “Saying that doesn’t make the rest disappear.”

His phone rang again. He glanced at the screen—head of security. He answered immediately.

“Tell me.”

“Sir, we have a hit. An unknown woman accessed Chloe’s medical files at the clinic four weeks ago. Used a fake ID. She’s still unidentified, but the sabotage is definitely still active. Whoever it is hasn’t stopped.”

Damian met Chloe’s eyes as the words sank in.

*********

Chloe tied the apron strings tight around her expanded belly and plunged her hands into the dough, kneading harder than necessary in the bakery’s back kitchen. She had slipped out of the penthouse that morning while Damian was on calls, needing flour under her nails and the familiar hum of ovens more than she needed another locked room.

The front bell kept chiming. Mixed voices filtered back. some regulars offering quiet support, others whispering just loud enough. She shaped another loaf, ignoring the ache in her lower back.

A sharp voice cut through the noise from the front counter. “She’s just a gold-digger trapping him with those babies. Look at her. As if Damian King would actually stay with that.”

Chloe’s hands stilled in the sticky dough. She wiped them on her apron and pushed through the swinging door. The woman in line. a sharp-faced blonde in designer sunglasses met her eyes without flinching.

“Get out,” Chloe said, voice low but steady. “Don’t come back.”

The woman smirked and left, but the damage lingered in the sudden quiet of the shop. Chloe turned and walked straight to the stockroom, legs moving on autopilot. The door clicked shut behind her. She slid down the wall until she sat on the cold floor, arms wrapped around her belly, shoulders shaking as tears ran hot down her face and dripped onto her apron.

The door opened a few minutes later. Damian stepped in, closing it softly behind him. He didn’t speak at first. He just lowered himself to the floor beside her, suit pants be damned, close enough that his knee brushed hers but not crowding.

They sat in silence for a long stretch. Chloe wiped her face with the back of her hand and kept her arms locked around her middle.

“I’m sorry you’re going through this because of me,” Damian said quietly. His voice sounded rough, like the words cost him. “My family… they destroy anything good. Always have. They see it as a threat. I grew up knowing that, and I still brought you into it.”

Chloe turned her head to look at him. His jaw was tight, eyes fixed on the shelves across from them. She thought, "He actually means it right now. But how long until his world pulls him back?*

“I felt it cracking,” she said. “A little. But I’m still scared to trust you. Every time I let myself, something else hits.”

He nodded once, slow. “I get that. I wouldn’t trust me either, not after everything.”

Her phone buzzed on the floor beside her. Another anonymous text: "Stay away from him or the bakery burns." She showed it to Damian without a word.

His expression hardened. “I’ll add security. More than before.”

Before she could respond, her longtime employee Maria slipped into the stockroom, glancing over her shoulder. “Chloe, I need to tell you something. I overheard a couple guys outside earlier. Someone’s been paying random people to come in here, leave bad reviews, yell stuff. It’s organized. Not just internet trolls.”

Chloe pushed herself up from the floor, one hand on the wall for balance. She looked at Damian, then back at Maria.

“Who’s paying them?”

maria hesitated " I don't have names."

but they are targeting us specifically.