Chapter 6 : Already Ours

"You bought a franchise." I stopped walking the second the boardroom doors closed behind us. "You bought an entire professional hockey franchise. Overnight."

"It was a sound investment," Lucian said. He adjusted his cuff without looking up.

"It was insane."

"Those are not mutually exclusive."

I pressed my fingers to my forehead. The hallway stretched long and marble-floored around us, the kind of building where everything echoed. My reflection stared back at me from the glass wall opposite, a woman in a borrowed dress with a diamond ring that cost more than my entire journalism career.

Two hundred and twelve dollars. That was my real number. Not the ring. Not the dress. Not the franchise they had just purchased like it was a weekend decision.

Two hundred and twelve dollars against their infinite, immovable wealth.

I had no leverage here. I never had.

"Let's go," Gavin said. Not unkindly. But final.

The SUV pulled away from the stadium. I sat between Zane and the window, watching the paparazzi thin out in the side mirror.

Lucian was already on his phone before we hit the first intersection.

"This is Voss. I need the mascot performance contract under Malia Fonoti cancelled and removed from the system by end of day." A pause. "Because I said so, that is why." Another pause. "No. I need a new contract drafted. Private Media Consultant, exclusive to the ownership group. Send the terms to my attorney within the hour."

He ended the call.

I turned to face him. "You cannot do that."

"It is done."

"You are buying my career. You understand that? You are taking the one thing I had left and putting your name on it."

"We are giving you a salary that actually pays rent," Zane said beside me. His voice was easy, unbothered. "You were making eleven dollars an hour in a foam animal costume. This is better."

"That is not the point."

"Then what is the point, Malia?"

I looked at him. "The point is that I cannot leave now. You have my phone. You have my contract. You have my job title. Every exit you close, you close it with money I do not have and lawyers I cannot fight." I held up my left hand. The diamond caught the light. "And you put this on my finger without asking."

Zane looked at the ring. Then he looked at me.

"You are safe," he said quietly. "That is the point."

But safe inside a cage is still a cage. I knew the difference. I had spent eight months in Ohio learning it.

I didn't say that out loud. I was too tired and the ring was too heavy and the contract was already being drafted somewhere in a law office I would never see.

The penthouse facility was quieter when we returned. Lucian took a call the moment we stepped inside. Zane disappeared toward the kitchen again, defaulting to the role he had apparently assigned himself.

I stood in the long hallway outside the main room, staring at the ring.

Gavin appeared at the far end. He walked toward me slowly, the way he moved on the ice when there was no rush because the outcome was already decided.

He stopped close enough that I had to hold my ground.

"Ask me," he said.

I looked up. "What?"

"You have been building to a question since the boardroom. Ask it."

I steadied my breathing. "Is this all because of the babies? The contracts, the franchise, the ring. Is that what this is?"

He reached out and took my chin in his hand. Not harsh. Not soft either. The grip of someone who intended to be heard.

His dark eyes held mine without moving.

"There were no babies in that locker room three weeks ago," he said.

My breath stopped.

"We tracked your shifts for two weeks before that night. We knew your contract schedule, your access routes, your hours." His thumb pressed lightly against my jaw. "We had already decided."

The hallway felt like it was shrinking.

"We bought the team," he said, "so that no other man in that building could look at you."

He didn't blink.

"The babies changed the timeline. They did not change the conclusion." His voice dropped to something quieter and far more dangerous. "You are ours, Malia. You were ours before the test. Before the sidewalk. Before any of this."

His hand stayed on my chin.

"We were just waiting for you to stop running."