The Billionaire’s Erased Love

Lila didn’t move. For a second, the world held its breath, just the rain sliding down the glass and the soft sound of Eli breathing in the crook of Dominic Hale’s arm.Then her body decided for her.She crossed the space in three fast steps and lifted her son out of his grasp before he could react. The movement shocked him enough that he didn’t try to stop her; she could feel his stare burning between her shoulder blades as she turned away.“Don’t,” she said, voice trembling. “Don’t follow me.”She heard him breathe in slowly, controlled, the way a man does when he’s accustomed to people obeying him.“You’re not going anywhere until we talk.”“I’ve had six years of silence. That’s enough talking.”Eli stirred against her chest, tiny fingers curling at her collar. Panic clawed her throat. She went for the elevator.But when she pressed the button, nothing happened.No light. No sound.The floor hummed softly under her feet, as if the entire tower was holding its breath again.“Elevators

The monitors had gone black, and Dominic had gone down.Lila curled around him like a hedgehog, breath and heat and a small, insistent heartbeat pressed against her ribs. The intruders had left as efficiently as they’d arrived, boots fading down the service corridors, their devices whispering as they wiped and copied data. Then the building held its breath.When the lights flickered back on, it felt like the world had been rewired.Someone shouted orders in clipped, authoritative tones, and the security hub flooded with movement, footsteps, and paged names, as weapons slid back into holsters.Dominic’s face was a pale map of bruises and lines. He blinked awake like a man surfacing from dark water, eyes wavering until they found Lila. Recognition struggled through the fog, slow as sunrise.“Lila?” His voice scraped out. He tried to push himself up, but she pressed a hand to his chest, forcing him gently back.“Stay.”Eli was warm and solid in her arms, breathing softly, a tiny anchor in

The flashes kept bursting, white and sharp, as if the cameras wanted to blind them. Dominic answered another question with that calm, cutting authority the world worshipped him for. His voice slid over the chaos, controlled, calm, and untouchable.Lila barely heard him.Her gaze kept pulling back to the place where she’d seen the watcher.A single figure with no camera, no phone, no press badge…Just eyes. Watching her. Watching Eli, and Watching Dominic.They were gone now, swallowed by the crowd in an instant that felt too deliberate.Her pulse thudded.Something was wrong.Very wrong.She turned slightly toward Dominic, whispering, “Dominic,” but he didn’t hear her. Or maybe he couldn’t, over the press. He only angled his body subtly toward her, hand warm and steady at the small of her back, guiding her without breaking his perfect public facade.Then a security guard leaned in behind him.A whisper, too low for the mics.Dominic’s jaw flexed.Almost imperceptibly.But Lila felt it

The red dot blinked once on the wall panel, a small, sharp, and impossible sight.Dominic stared at it as if the screen had spoken his name. Lila felt the same icy drop in her stomach she’d felt when the lights first went out. Only this time, the fear wasn’t shapeless.It had a location.Her room.Dominic stepped toward the hallway first, his body moving with that quiet, controlled violence she now recognized as the billionaire’s version of panic. Lila held Eli so tight she felt his little heartbeat thudding against her ribs.A tech rushed ahead of them, tools already in hand. “We’re tracking the signal, sir.”Dominic didn’t answer. He pushed open the door to Lila’s bedroom, his shoulders hard as stone.The room was dim, shadows stretching across the floor like spilled ink. Lila’s breath caught as she followed him in. Eli’s grip on her tightened again.“Mommy… It’s scary.”“I know, sweetheart,” she whispered into his hair. “I know.”The tech knelt at the base of the wall, running a sca

The storm had passed, but the tension in the penthouse only thickened as if the pressure had settled inside the walls instead of the sky. The city glittered below in cold, indifferent lights. The hum of security teams echoed faintly through the hallway outside Lila’s door, voices low and clipped, boots steady, movements sharp.Dominic didn’t sit. He had been pacing the length of the glass wall for almost ten minutes, each step controlled but edged with something fraying at the seams. Lila stood near the kitchen island with Eli asleep against her shoulder, rocking gently. She didn’t dare put him down yet. Not with the alert still flashing in her mind:BIOMETRIC SCAN FAILURE: SERVICE DOOR: UNKNOWN PRINT DETECTED.Someone had tried to access the penthouse. Someone inside Hale Tower.The guards had finished their sweep. Two stood near the main door, one near the service corridor, and another monitoring the private elevator that connected to Dominic’s floors. Meredith had arrived minutes ea