Chapter 10 : The Confession

Nobody breathed.

The question hung in the air of that atrium like smoke, and every camera in the room swung toward Lucian's back.

Say no, I thought. Deny it. Save yourself. Save all of this.

It is what any rational person would do. Deny the rumor, discredit the source, protect the billion-dollar acquisition they had spent one night buying. I was already building the script in my head, the polished non-answer that would let them walk away clean.

Lucian stepped forward.

He turned to face the cameras directly, all of them, every lens in the room, and he did not look like a man about to deny anything.

The silence stretched one more second.

"She is carrying our children," he said.

His voice was flat and absolute and carried to every corner of the atrium without effort.

"Any person, any outlet, or any individual who targets her, approaches her without consent, or attempts to use this family as leverage will face the full legal and financial weight of this organization." He looked down the barrel of the nearest camera. "We are done taking questions."

The room detonated.

Shouted questions, camera flashes doubling, reporters surging forward against the security line. I stood completely still inside the chaos and felt something crack open in my chest that I did not have a name for yet.

He did not hesitate. Not even a breath's worth.

Gavin's hand found my waist before I finished the thought. He pulled me flush against his side in one smooth motion, his grip firm and total, and bent his head close to my ear.

"We have you," he said quietly. "Keep walking."

Zane materialized on my other side, shoulders back, body angled outward, creating a moving wall between me and every camera still trying to find an angle. The three of them moved me toward the side corridor and I let them, because my legs were functioning on something closer to instinct than decision.

The press line collapsed into noise behind us.

The private elevator doors closed on all of it.

Silence.

The four of us stood in the mirrored car as it rose, and the sudden absence of sound felt physical. My ears were still ringing. My hands were shaking and I pressed them flat against my thighs so nobody would see.

I looked at my own reflection and barely recognized the woman looking back.

"How did they know?" I said.

Nobody answered immediately.

"The pregnancy," I said. "It was not in any document. It was not in any contract. The only people in that room with the specialist were the four of us." I looked at Lucian. "So how did a reporter in a stadium atrium know to ask that question?"

Lucian was already looking at his phone.

He had been looking at it since the doors closed, and the expression on his face was the one I had learned to pay attention to. Not anger. Not urgency. The specific stillness that meant something had gone badly wrong and he was calculating the exact dimensions of it.

"Lucian," Gavin said.

Lucian turned the screen around.

It was a text message. Sent to what I assumed was a private number because Lucian's expression said it should have been impossible to reach. The sender ID was blank, a string of zeros where a contact should have been.

Three lines.

I read them once and then read them again because my brain refused to process them on the first pass.

THE PRESS WAS JUST THE APPETIZER.

CONGRATULATIONS ON THE TRIPLETS.

SEE YOU AT THE PENTHOUSE, MALIA.

The elevator doors opened onto the sixty-second floor.

None of us moved.