THE BILLIONAIRE I BURIED

Behind the Door

The handle moved once again.

Adrian gave a finger gesture of 'don't move' and Maya obeyed before she'd even decided to because whatever was on his face killed the argument in her throat.

He crossed the room soundlessly. The handle turned half way before stopping.

"Mr. Cross?"

His shoulders released some of the tension. "My security chief." He unlocked the door.

The man entered with a tablet in hand. "Sir, I-"

Adrian's fist met his jaw and sent him into the wall.

"What are you doing?" Maya said, jumping to his side.

Adrian grabbed the man by his jacket and pressed him into the door. "You were supposed to be downstairs."

"I was."

"Then why are you up here alone?"

The man spat on the floor. "Because someone breached the building."

Adrian let him go. "Who?"

"We don't know."

"You're his security chief and you don't know," Maya said.

His eyes flicked to her. "Mrs. Cross-"

"Call me that."

He turned to Adrian who gave him a look that put the conversation on pause and handed the tablet over. "Sir. Look."

Adrian took the tablet and Maya leaned in beside him. The screen showed a live video feed of the underground garage where the stolen sedan sat exactly where they had left it and standing besides it, hands in his pockets, like he was waiting for a bus was Ethan.

Maya's heart pounded in her ribs. "That's him."

Same clothes as that morning. No blood or injuries anywhere on him.

"You said he disappeared," she said.

"He did."

"Then how is he standing right there?"

Adrian didn't answer. The chief zoomed in on the camera. On the screen Ethan raised his phone towards the camera-

-and the feed went black.

The apartment lights flickered and died.

A metallic click came from the darkness. Maya turned towards it, security chief had drawn his gun.

Adrian stepped in front of Maya. "Put it down."

"Sir-"

"Now."

The gun lowered. Something heavy crashed down the hall. It rattled the walls for a moment, then stopped.

Adrian took her hand. "Stay with me." He led her towards the bedroom.

"Why there?"

"Safe room."

"You have a safe room?"

"I run a company people want dead. Yes."

"You say that like it's a normal Tuesday."

"For me it is."

Another crash. The front door shook on its hinges. Someone was trying to rip it off its tracks. Adrian put his palm against a panel in the bedroom wall and it split open.

"You have got to be joking."

"Get in."

She went in first. He followed and the panel closed behind them swallowing the last bit of light.

She could hear him breathing beside her in the dark. Then his hand found hers.

She pulled free. "Don't."

"I wasn't trying anything."

"You always look like you're trying something."

A breath of laughter, quiet. "That's your problem, not mine."

"My problem is I married a man I don't trust."

"You married me because you trust someone else even less."

She turned towards the sound of his voice. "In my first life I trusted Ethan completely."

"And?"

"He destroyed everything I had."

Silence. Then softer. "I don't want to make that mistake twice."

"You won't."

"How can you promise that?"

"Because this time I'm standing right here."

Their faces were close enough in the dark that she could feel the words more than hear them. For one second the panic on the other side of the wall stopped mattering.

Then she remembered the photograph. Herself, standing over his body. A gun in her hand.

She stepped back. "I might be the one who kills you."

He didn't move away. "Then I'll give you a reason not to."

A speaker crackled to life somewhere above them.

"Adrian."

Maya went rigid. Adrian's face turned to stone.

The voice laughed, soft and unhurried. "You brought her into your little safe room."

"Who is this," Adrian said. Not a question.

"You know exactly who this is."

"No."

"You stood at my grave."

Ice ran down Maya's spine.

"Three years ago," the voice continued. "You watched them lower me into the ground."

"That's not possible," Maya whispered.

The speaker went dead. A photograph slid through a slot at the base of the wall. Maya's fingers shook picking it up- Adrian standing at a graveside, and beside him a young man she recognized instantly.

She'd seen that face once before. At her family's house. The night everything burned.

Adrian took the photo from her hand, something in him broke open. "Daniel."

"The man Ethan was on the phone with."

He nodded once.

"Who is he?"

"My brother."

"You told me you had no family."

"I told you he was dead."

The speaker crackled back on. "You were always good at hiding things Adrian."

"What do you want?"

"What you took from me."

"I took nothing from you."

Daniel laughed, low. "You took my life."

The lights snapped back on. A red countdown lit up across the wall.

00:59

"What is that," Maya said, already knowing.

Adrian's face went bloodless. "Bomb."

00:52

She grabbed his arm. "Another way out?"

"Not through the door." He wrenched open a second panel. Empty wall. Nothing.

00:41

"Adrian!"

He turned to her, for the first time since she'd met him again she saw real fear in his eyes- not for himself.

He grabbed her face in both hands. "If that door opens, you run. You don't look back."

"I'm not leaving you."

"You will."

"No."

"Maya-"

"I said no."

00:20

The wall behind them cracked open in a wall of noise and heat. Maya screamed. Adrian pulled her into his chest and threw his body around hers as the lights died a second time.

Then- nothing. Silence, and smoke thick enough to taste.

Maya's eyes opened slowly. "Adrian?"

No answer.

She felt arms wrapped around her, holding her up out of the wreckage. She let herself lean into them for half a second before some instinct told her something was wrong.

These weren't Adrian's arms.

A voice breathed against her ear, calm, almost gentle.

"Don't be afraid, Maya."

She knew that voice.

Ethan.