Chapter 2 - The Exit Strategy
"Nobody," I stammered, scrambling backward against the cold tile until my shoulder hit the wall. "No one knows, Cassian. I haven't gone to a clinic under my real name. I paid cash for my prenatal vitamins at a 24-hour pharmacy three miles away. I haven't even told my landlord!"
Cassian didn't look relieved. If anything, the deadly tension radiating off his body intensified. He motioned to Lev without looking away from me. "Get the armored Maybach brought around to the underground executive loading bay. Tell Viktor to clear the service elevator and kill the CCTV feed on floors thirty through forty."
"Right away, boss," Lev said, turning on his heel and disappearing into the carpeted hallway.
"Wait—what are you doing?" I pleaded, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. "I have three more floors to clean! My supervisor checks the sign-out sheet at ten—"
"Your cleaning contract ended thirty seconds ago, Clara," Cassian said, stepping forward.
Before I could protest, he leaned down, slid one massive arm under my knees and another around my back, and lifted me effortlessly off the floor. I let out a sharp gasp, instinctively clutching at his charcoal lapels. He smelled of rain, expensive cedarwood cologne, and the faint, bitter metallic tang of gunpowder.
"Put me down!" I cried, trying to wriggle against his grip. "You can't just abduct me from my job!"
"I am not abduct—" Cassian paused, taking a deep, steadying breath as he held me securely against his broad chest. "I am keeping you alive. There is a distinction."
He carried me out of the restroom and into his sprawling executive corner office. The room was bathed in the red glow of Chicago’s night skyline. On his massive glass desk, his personal phone was buzzing continuously on silent mode, the screen flashing with an unlisted number.
Cassian walked directly toward a paneled mahogany wall behind his desk. He pressed his thumb against a concealed biometric scanner hidden behind a framed oil painting. A silent click echoed through the office, and a panel popped open, revealing a private, secondary elevator shaft that didn't appear on any architectural blueprints of Meridian Tower.
"What was on that phone, Cassian?" I asked, my voice rising in panic as the elevator doors slid open. "What did Lev show you?"
Cassian stepped inside the steel elevator cage, pressing a single unmarked silver button. The doors glided shut, sealing us in thick, soundproof silence as the lift began a stomach-dropping descent.
"A intercept from the Dimitri Syndicate," Cassian said, his eyes fixed on the illuminated floor counter ticking down. "Dimitri Markov has spent the last five years trying to dismantle my shipping interests in the Midwest. Three hours ago, a leak came out of my inner circle. Someone told Markov that I had an unlisted personal interest working in this building."
I felt the blood drain entirely from my face. "Me?"
"Markov doesn't know your name yet," Cassian said, his gray eyes flashing dark with suppressed rage. "His men only know that there was a woman working the night shift at Meridian Tower whom I had been quietly searching for. They were dispatched forty minutes ago to secure you as leverage against me."
My hands shook violently against his suit jacket. "They... they were coming here tonight?"
"They are in the lower parking garage right now, Clara," Cassian said quietly, his grip around me tightening in protective instinct. "They think they are picking up an easy target to put a gun to my head. They don't know you're carrying my heir."
The elevator gave a soft hiss and came to a smooth halt at basement level three—the private, subterranean vault beneath the main parking garage.
The doors opened to reveal a sleek, matte-black armored sedan waiting with its engine running quietly. Lev was standing by the open rear door, an automatic rifle held low and discreetly against his thigh.
"Viktor handled the scouts near the east ramp," Lev reported briskly as Cassian carried me toward the vehicle. "We have a two-minute window before Markov's main team realizes the service lift was accessed."
Cassian carefully lowered me onto the buttery leather rear seat of the Maybach, sliding in right beside me before the heavy, reinforced door slammed shut with the satisfying, air-tight thud of a bank vault.
"Where are you taking me?" I begged, curling into the corner of the leather seat, clutching my stomach as the heavy vehicle accelerated smoothly into the dark concrete tunnels beneath the city.
May you like
Cassian pulled a sleek matte-black handgun from his shoulder holster, checked the magazine with a practiced, terrifying efficiency, and chambered a round with a sharp clack.
"To my estate in Lake Forest," Cassian said, turning his lethal gray gaze to mine. "Where no one can touch you. And where you and I are going to have the conversation we should have had five months ago."
