8

"Hold your breath and push, damn it!"

Caleb’s shoulder was buried under the jagged edge of a steel support beam. His face was a mask of gray dust and drying blood. The veins in his neck stood out like thick cords.

"I'm trying!" I shoved my palms against the cold metal. My boots skidded on the loose plaster and shattered glass. "It’s not moving, Caleb!"

"Push! Unless you want to spend the rest of your life as a rug for Lucas Reed's hit squad!" He let out a guttural roar. The beam groaned. It shifted an inch. Two.

I threw my entire weight into it. My ribs felt like they were ready to snap. The metal screeched, a sound that set my teeth on edge. Slowly, the gap widened.

"Go! Under!" Caleb wheezed. His arms were shaking. He was holding up tons of debris with sheer, animalistic stubbornness.

I scrambled through the hole, the sharp edges of the rebar catching on my suit jacket. I tumbled onto the other side, hitting the floor hard. "Come on! Get out from under it!"

Caleb shoved the beam one last time and dove. The steel crashed down behind him, sending a fresh cloud of choking dust into the hallway. He lay there for a second, chest heaving. Snot and blood smeared across his upper lip. He looked human. Messy. For the first time since this started, the "CEO" was gone.

"You okay?" I reached out. My hand stopped an inch from his shoulder.

"Don't—don't ask stupid questions." He rolled onto his back and coughed, spitting a thick glob of gray phlegm onto the floor. "Help me up. We have to get to the mechanical room."

"The mechanical room is gone, Caleb. The whole north wing is a crater."

"Not the room. The panel behind the service elevator." He grabbed my hand. His grip was cold. Clammy. He pulled himself up, leaning heavily on me. The power dynamic had flipped in a heartbeat. The man who had dominated me in that hotel room, who had scammed my life away, was now dragging a leg.

"What's behind the panel?"

"Safety. Or at least a door that doesn't lead to a ten-story drop."

We hobbled down the tilted corridor. The emergency lights flickered, casting long, jerky shadows against the scorched walls. Every few seconds, the building groaned, a deep, structural moan that made my stomach drop.

"Here." Caleb stopped at a plain gray wall near the elevator shaft. He pressed his palm against a section of the molding that looked like a decorative trim.

Click.

A seam appeared. A door, reinforced with three inches of steel, slid back.

"A panic room?" I stepped inside. The air was pressurized. Clean. It smelled like ozone and expensive leather. "You renovated the whole floor for this?"

"I renovated the floor because I knew Lucas wouldn't stop at a board meeting." Caleb slammed the door shut. The locks engaged with a heavy, final thud. We were sealed in.

He slumped into one of the two leather chairs, his head falling back. The silence in the room was deafening after the roar of the explosion.

"You're bleeding again." I walked over to a small cabinet. I found a bottle of water and a clean towel. I knelt between his legs, dabbing at the gash on his thigh.

"Ethan. Stop."

"Sit still, Caleb."

"The text message," he said. His voice was a rasp. "The one you saw at the warehouse. Stage one."

I stopped. My hand went numb. I looked up at him. "The one that said I was cornered? The one that led the feds and the hit squad to my door?"

"It wasn't for Lucas." Caleb reached out, his fingers brushing the hair back from my forehead. His touch was light. Terrifying. "It was for the Bureau. Special Agent Miller. Stage one was getting you into a secured location where I could hand over the decryption keys for Reed’s laundering ring. I’ve been an informant for eighteen months."

I stared at him. The towel dropped from my hand. "An informant? You scammed me into bankruptcy to take down a money-laundering ring?"

"I scammed you into bankruptcy because your company was already the laundromat!" Caleb grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at him. "Lucas was using your offshore accounts before you even knew they existed. If the FBI moved on you then, you’d be in a federal pen for thirty years. I had to bankrupt you to disconnect your name from the active flow of cash. I had to make you look like a victim of a hostile takeover so you wouldn't be a co-conspirator."

"You did all that... for me?"

"I did it because I’m not letting some two-bit thug like Reed take what belongs to me." Caleb’s eyes searched mine. The heat was there again. Not the business heat. The one that made my mouth go dry. "I told you. I’m the only one who gets to ruin you."

"You’re a lunatic."

"Maybe." He pulled me closer. His hand slid into my hair, gripping tight. "But I’m the lunatic who’s keeping you out of a jumpsuit. Tell me I’m wrong, Ethan. Tell me you don't feel it."

"Feel what? The fear that you’re going to get us both killed?"

"The hunger." He leaned in. His lips brushed mine. They were dry, cracked, and tasted like iron. "Tell me you don't want to burn it all down right here."

I didn't answer. I couldn't. I shoved my hands into his hair and pulled him into a kiss that felt like a fight. It was desperate. We were two animals trapped in a hole, waiting for the hunters to dig us out.

Caleb groaned, his hands tearing at my shirt. The buttons flew. One hit the reinforced wall with a tiny ping. He didn't wait. He shoved me down onto the floor, his weight crushing the air out of my lungs.

"I thought... I thought you were hurt," I panted.

"I’m alive. That’s enough."

He ripped my trousers down. His fingers were blunt, demanding. He didn't use oil this time. He didn't use spit. He used a raw, bruising force that made me scream into the quiet room.

He drove inside me with a single, violent thrust.

"Fuck—Caleb!" My back arched. My head hit the leg of the leather chair.

"Look at me." He gripped my waist, his thumbs digging into my hip bones. "Say it. Say you belong to me."

"You... ahh! You arrogant bastard!"

He pounded. It was a rhythmic, punishing assault. The leather of the chair squeaked. The only other sound was the wet slap of our bodies and Caleb’s jagged breath. He wasn't being a protector now. He was being a conqueror. Every strike felt like he was trying to bury himself in my soul.

I clawed at his back, my nails leaving red tracks through the dust on his skin. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to thank him. I wanted to erase the last ten years of rivalry with every heavy shove.

"Say it!" Caleb snarled.

"I'm yours!" I screamed. I came apart, my release smearing against my stomach, my vision going white.

Caleb let out a guttural roar, his body stiffening as he buried himself deep. He filled me with a heavy, pulsing heat that felt like a brand. He collapsed on top of me, his heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.

We lay there for a long time. The pressurized air hummed. The physical hangover started to set in—the shaking legs, the stinging friction, the weight of his body pressing me into the floor.

"We have to move," Caleb whispered into my ear. "Miller will be at the extraction point in twenty minutes."

"I can't move." My legs were like jelly.

"You have to." He rolled off me and stood up, reaching for his discarded shirt.

I sat up, leaning against the leather chair. My hand brushed against a small handle under the seat. A drawer.

"What's this?"

"Nothing. Emergency supplies." Caleb didn't look back. He was tucking his shirt in.

I pulled the handle. It wasn't emergency supplies.

It was a stack of dossiers. Thick. Bound in black leather. I opened the first one.

A photo fell out.

It was me. Five years ago. I was at a cafe in London, laughing at something my sister said.

I flipped the page.

Me in New York. Me at a charity gala in Chicago. Me leaving my apartment at three in the morning.

There were hundreds of them. Annotated in Caleb’s sharp, precise handwriting.

2022: He’s expanding into renewables. Aggressive. I need to block the copper supply to see how he reacts.

2023: He looks tired. The Reed connection is starting to fester. I have to move the timeline up.

2024: He bought the blue suit. He knows I’m watching.

I felt the blood drain from my face. This wasn't corporate research. This was a blueprint of my life.

"Caleb?" I held up the photo from London. My hand was shaking.

Caleb stopped. He turned slowly. The smugness was gone. The protector was gone. There was only a raw, naked obsession in his eyes.

"You've been following me for years," I whispered. "The rivalry... the merger... the bankruptcy. It wasn't about Lucas Reed, was it?"

Caleb walked over. He knelt in front of me, his eyes locked on mine.

"Lucas was the excuse, Ethan." He took the photo from my hand. "I’ve been building a cage for you since the moment I saw you in that cafe. I just needed the world to burn so you’d finally run inside."

A red light began to flash on the panic room wall. A silent alarm.

"The door," Caleb said, his voice cold. "Someone’s bypasssing the code from the outside."

I looked at the drawer of photos, then at the man I had just given everything to.

"Who is it?"

Caleb reached for a hidden panel in the wall and pulled out a suppressed handgun.

"It’s not the FBI," he said.

The heavy steel door began to hiss as the pressure seal broke.

"Then who is it?"

Caleb leveled the gun at the door. "It's your father, Ethan. And he’s not here to rescue you."

The door swung open.