The elevator chimed at 2:15 precisely, and Elara watched the doors slide open to reveal Julian flanked by a man who moved like violence held in check. Dark suit, no tie, shoulders that suggested bulk beneath the tailored lines. His gaze swept the penthouse before settling on her. Clinical and assessing. As though she were a lock that needed picking or a window that needed boarding up. Julian's hand pressed briefly against the small of the stranger's back, guiding him forward, and she caught the edge of a manila folder tucked under his arm. The afternoon light cut harsh angles across the marble floor, making the living room feel less like a refuge and more like a place of scrutiny.
"This is Brennan," Julian said, crossing to the coffee table where she sat curled beneath a cashmere throw. "He'll be handling your security from here on out." No warmth in the introduction. No context about who Brennan worked for or what handling meant in practice. The specialist had already begun his circuit of the room, pausing at each window to test the latch, eyeing the distance between furniture like he was calculating cover positions. Elara pulled the blanket higher on her lap, feeling the soft weight settle over her abdomen. The wall clock's digital display burned 2:15 into her peripheral vision, and something about the precision of it made her think of hospital schedules, of trimester calendars, of all the appointments she'd never made.
Julian spread the folder's contents across the glass surface between them. Aerial photographs of a stone estate surrounded by dense tree lines. Topographical maps with red circles marking entry points. A gate code written in Julian's neat hand beside a starred notation she couldn't read from this angle. "Private road," Brennan said, not looking at her as he spoke. "No neighbors within a mile. Cameras on every approach." He tapped one of the photographs with a blunt finger, indicating a guardhouse barely visible through the foliage. "Nobody gets in or out without us knowing." The rustle of paper as Julian flipped to the next page sounded impossibly loud in the quiet room, his hands steady and unhurried. She remembered the cracked phone screen from that morning, the one piece of evidence that anything had rattled him.
The men talked over her head in clipped fragments: transport routes, burner phones, rotating security teams. Elara sat very still. She wasn't listening. She was calculating, running the numbers on what two hours north really meant. Two hours from Julian's direct supervision—from whatever fragile leverage her presence provided. The safe house sounded less like safety and more like storage, a place to put inconvenient women while powerful men decided their fates in conference rooms far away. Brennan glanced at Julian. "We'll need final authorization for any off-site movement." Julian nodded without looking up from the paperwork. The word authorization landed cold in her chest.
"Once you're there, Elara, you do not speak to anyone named Sterling. Understood?" Julian's voice cut through her spiraling thoughts, almost absent, as though this were administrative rather than a decree. He didn't look up from the paperwork, his pen hovering over a line that required her signature. The zero-contact clause. She could see the words printed in stark legal language, a wall being erected between her and every connection she'd built in three years of marriage. Not that those connections had been real. Not that anyone in Marcus's orbit had ever looked at her as anything other than an extension of him. But still. The totality of it pressed against her ribs, made it hard to draw a full breath.
Her hand drifted beneath the blanket, finding the slight swell that no one else could see yet. Brennan was outlining contingency codes now, scenarios where extraction might become necessary, and Elara understood with sudden clarity that she was being managed. Packaged. Removed from the equation so Julian could do whatever Julian intended to do without the complication of her existence getting in the way. The security specialist's gaze slid over her again, and she read nothing in it except professional assessment, the same look he'd given the door hinges and the window frames. A layout problem. An asset to be secured. Her fingertips pressed against her abdomen, feeling for something she couldn't yet feel, a presence that existed only in test results and missed periods and the constant low hum of nausea she'd learned to hide.
Julian circled the gate code in red, a decisive stroke of his pen. Two hours north. Rotating security teams. No contact with anyone who might remind her she'd ever been Elara Sterling instead of Elara Chase. The throw blanket was warm against her palm, and beneath it her hand stayed pressed to the secret that could change everything. She thought about due dates and countdowns. About how much harder it would be to secure his protection once she was out of his sight, reduced to status reports and weekly check-ins. About the way powerful men made promises and then forgot them the moment inconvenience outweighed interest.
Brennan finished his assessment and positioned himself near the elevator, hands clasped in front of him, waiting for dismissal. Julian was still reviewing documents, still dictating terms as though she weren't sitting three feet away with her whole future balanced on whether he decided she was worth the trouble. The window for control was narrowing with every page he turned, every clause he added to the growing list of restrictions. Elara watched the clock tick to 2:23. Watched Julian's steady hand move across paper. She made her decision.
She would tell him before this meeting ended. Before he sent her away like another asset to be stored. Before she lost the only leverage she had left.
Her palm pressed flat against her abdomen. The window was closing.