Chapter 2

Gisele stared at me, her face a mask of shocked indignation. Easton recovered first, his shock curdling into a cold fury.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he snarled, taking a protective step in front of Gisele. "This is my operation. Stand down, Adria."

"Your operation just demonstrated a catastrophic security failure to our potential partner," I replied, my voice dangerously quiet. I didn't look at him. My eyes remained locked on Gisele. "My team is simply following protocol for gross incompetence in the field. Take her," I ordered my men.

Two members of Alpha Team moved toward Gisele. They didn't draw their batons; they didn't need to. Their presence was enough-a silent, overwhelming promise of force. Gisele shrank back, her eyes wide with genuine panic now.

"Easton!" she cried, her voice cracking. "Easton, tell them! Stop her!"

That's when Easton finally moved. He lunged forward, shoving my men aside with a roar. He placed himself squarely between them and Gisele, his body a human shield. His face was a storm of fury directed entirely at me.

"I said, stand down!" he yelled, his voice echoing off the metal walls. "This was a test for Sterling! It's over! You're making a scene!"

I almost laughed. Just minutes ago, he was betting on my arrival, callously dismissing the risk to our child. Now he was shielding his mistress, his primary concern the disruption of his sick little game. The hypocrisy was breathtaking.

"A scene?" I repeated, the words tasting like ash. "You stage your own kidnapping, you use our unborn child as bait in a corporate pissing match, and you're worried about me making a scene?"

His eyes flickered towards Sterling, then back to me, a cornered animal's panic in their depths. "You're pregnant, for God's sake! You shouldn't even be here!"

There it was. He wasn't using my pregnancy as a reason for concern, but as a weapon to paint me as unstable. As irrational.

"You're right," I said, my voice dripping with an irony so bitter it burned my throat. "How thoughtless of me." I took a step forward, my gaze unwavering. "Move aside, Easton."

"No," he said, his jaw set. He didn't even look at me. He was looking at Gisele, his expression softening into one of reassurance. He was protecting her. Not from physical harm, but from humiliation. From me.

And in that moment, watching him shield her, the final, supporting pillar of my world gave way. He had made his choice.

A sharp, sickening pull deep in my womb made me gasp. It wasn't a cramp; it was a tearing sensation. My hand instinctively went to my belly, the tactical vest suddenly feeling like a cage. The world tilted slightly.

No. Oh, God, no.

Marcus saw it. His face, usually a stoic mask, broke with alarm. "Ma'am?"

Easton followed his gaze. He saw the dark stain spreading on my tactical pants. He saw my face, drained of all color. For a split second, something other than anger flickered in his eyes-a horrifying, dawning comprehension. "Adria...?"

But it was too late. He had hesitated. He had chosen.

The pain was a white-hot tide, pulling me under. I collapsed to my knees, a choked sob escaping my lips. My men rushed forward, forming a protective circle around me, their backs to Easton and his crumbling world.

"Medic!" Marcus roared into his comms. "We have a medical emergency! I need an evac, now!"

Through a haze of pain, I saw Easton standing frozen, his face a canvas of disbelief and dawning horror. Gisele was staring, her hand over her mouth. Sterling was already on his phone, quietly backing away from the disaster.

Easton had said one life was enough.

"You're wrong," I whispered to the grimy concrete floor as darkness claimed me. "It was two."

I spent the next seven days in a sterile hospital room. The miscarriage was brutal, a wrenching, physical manifestation of my emotional agony. Easton and Gisele were gone. Vanished. No calls, no messages. Just a deafening silence that was, in itself, an answewr.

On the eighth day, when the bleeding had stopped and the hollowness in my womb was matched only by the emptiness in my soul, I picked up my phone. I dialed the number I hadn't called in ten years, the one belonging to the man I never wanted to see again.

Carter Sanders. My father.

His voice was gruff, impatient, just as I remembered. "What?"

"It's me," I said, my own voice hoarse and unfamiliar. There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line.

"I'm ready," I said, the words tasting of iron and ash. "I want them all. Every asset you have planted inside my company. Every loyalist. I want his entire network. I want to burn his world to the ground."