UNHALLOWED

5 Baby Girl

CHAPTER 5

Baby Girl

Rory was deep in the “zone,” a place of cold focus where the rest of the world ceased to exist. To the casual observer, it was an impressive workout, but Malphas recognized the truth written in the tension of her shoulders and the white-knuckle force of her grip.

This was not discipline—it was an exorcism.

Rory was fueled by a toxic cocktail of ancient anger and a thirst for vengeance that had been simmering for fifteen years. As she pivoted and drove her shin into the leather, she was not seeing a punching bag. She was seeing the flickering shadows of that night, a decade and a half ago—the night that had shattered her world and forged her into a weapon of bravery. Every strike was a scream for the justice she had been denied, a precise, calculated blow dealt to a ghost only she could see.

Malphas remained motionless, his gaze tracking the glisten of sweat on her skin. He had come to London to see the pop star from the ad earlier on the plane. But as he watched her snap a kick with enough force to break a man’s ribs, he realized the woman in the gym was far more dangerous than the girl on the stage.

The final note of the anthem crashed in her ears just as she landed her last strike. Rory stood panting, her chest heaving as the adrenaline began to recede, tethering her back to reality. As she reached up to wipe the sweat from her brow, her gaze snagged on the wall-to-wall mirrors in front of her.

Reflected in the glass was a figure that had not been there before: a man on the treadmill, moving with a predatory, high-velocity sprint that seemed almost too fast for a casual workout. Her survival instincts, honed by years of hyper-vigilance, immediately kicked into overdrive.

Her eyes darted across the room’s perimeter, conducting a rapid tactical scan. The gym was no longer empty. Four men stood like dark sentinels—two positioned just inside the entrance and two guarding the exterior. They were dressed in sharp, black suits and polished leather shoes, looking less like hotel guests and more like a high-level security detail. The atmosphere in the room had instantly shifted from the heat of her workout to a sudden, chilling absolute zero.

A heavy, jagged exhale escaped her as she ripped the headphones from her ears, the sudden silence of the gym feeling like a physical weight. She moved toward her duffel bag with a forced calmness, her pulse now hammering for a very different reason.

She stripped off her kickboxing gloves with trembling efficiency, immediately dragging her oversized hoodie back over her head. She needed the fabric to act as a shield—not just to hide her famous face from potential headlines, but to bury the “Global Pop Icon” under layers of anonymity. The air in the room had turned claustrophobic; being trapped in a secluded gym with five unknown men was a tactical nightmare.

Four sentinels stood guard at the exit like grim reapers in tailored suits, but it was the fifth man who truly unnerved her. He remained on the treadmill, his legs moving in a relentless, mechanical blur, his gaze fixed forward with the coldest, most vacant eyes she had ever encountered. They were not just the eyes of a stranger; they were absolutely and mercilessly ruthless and empty.

The steady, rhythmic thud thud thud of his shoes against the belt was the only sound in the room, a relentless heartbeat that set her teeth on edge. Who is this fucker? she thought, her instincts screaming at her to move.

Feeling dangerously outnumbered and exposed in her workout gear, she did not waste another second. She hooked the strap of her bag over her shoulder, her body tensed for a sprint as she prepared to run the gauntlet of the black-suited shadows standing between her and the door.

She ignored the heavy, sound-dampened door and shoved it open herself, refusing to give the four sentinels the satisfaction of helping her. They remained perfectly still, their tailored suits unable to hide the lethal curves of the handguns holstered at their waists.

As the door swung shut, the gym’s oppressive atmosphere was cut off, leaving only the fading, rhythmic thud of the treadmill echoing behind her like a retreating heartbeat.

Once she reached the safety of the carpeted hallway, her phone buzzed against her palm. It was a message from Marissa, bright and demanding:

Marissa: “Good morning! Please do not forget the fan meet at eight o’clock sharp in the morning! It is breakfast with a VIP. Think high-level politics—very important, very formal.”

Rory let out a sharp, guttural groan, her eyes rolling toward the ceiling in sheer frustration. The adrenaline from the gym was soured by a wave of cynical exhaustion.

“Great,” she muttered to the empty corridor, her voice dripping with venom. “Another f*****g horny, married political pig who thinks a campaign donation buys him a night with the girl on the poster.”

She gripped her phone tighter, her knuckles turning white. “Is the word ‘no’ really that difficult for these people to translate, or do they just choose to ignore it?”

By quarter to eight, Rory had shed her gym-rat persona for the armor of a Global Pop Icon. She was dressed in sharp, professional formality, diamond-encrusted hoop earrings, with a slick, high ballerina bun which screamed business, anchored by her signature three-inch red stilettos—heels that turned her already imposing height into something statuesque, elongating her legs until she looked like a lethal, high-fashion giant.

She climbed into the sleek, blacked-out vehicle sent by the VIP, while her own security detail followed in a tight formation behind them. The air was thick with the silent tension of a high-stakes meeting.

When the car pulled up to the venue—a world-renowned, elite establishment—the sidewalk was already a chaotic sea of paparazzi. Flashbulbs exploded like heat lightning as they scrambled to capture the “Global Pop Icon” in her morning finery.

“Rory, look over here!” A few of them hollered out loudly.

Rory did not give them a single glance, ducking into the building with practiced speed. Inside, the staff greeted her with a reverence bordering on worship, whisking her away to the rooftop deck.

She stepped out onto the terrace, expecting a crowded political brunch, but found herself met with a chilling, expansive emptiness. The deck was silent, and the city of London lay out beneath her like a map.

“While you wait, Miss Dixon, please—we have been instructed to let you order whatever you desire,” the waitress said, her voice trembling slightly with the excitement of a fan meeting an idol. She offered a polite, wide-eyed smile. “They will be arriving in just a minute.”

They? Rory’s internal alarm, already sensitized by the encounter at the gym, began to blare. Marissa had mentioned a “political pig,” but the plural pronoun suggested an entourage—or a family. Her eyes scanned the empty tables, the luxury of the setting suddenly feeling like a beautifully decorated trap.

Rory had been staring at the menu for only a minute or two when the heavy glass doors to the deck hissed open. She turned, expecting a stodgy politician, but the air in her lungs suddenly stalled.

At the center of the frame was a small girl, radiant in a shimmering pink dress encrusted with sequins—a miniature, glittering homage to the very costumes Rory wore on stage. She was being carried with effortless ease by a man who seemed to swallow the light around him. He was draped in an impeccably tailored, all-black suit that screamed old-money power, his dark hair slicked back with lethal precision. As he strode across the roofdeck, his presence did not fill the space; it seemed to hollow it out, making the vast area feel eerily more desolate, more dangerous.

Outside the glass, four sentinels stood at attention, while two more slipped inside to flank the entrance.

“Holy s**t…” Rory breathed, the words barely a ghost of a sound.

Her heart did a violent jolt against her ribs as those obsidian eyes locked onto hers, boring into her soul with the same "Absolute Zero" intensity she had witnessed at four in the morning. It was him—the predatory stranger from the gym.

The tension was snapped by a tiny, melodic giggle. The little girl nestled in his muscular arms leaned in, whispering with wide-eyed wonder, “Dada, it really is her. It is Miss Wowy Dixon.”

The man’s expression did not fully thaw, but his voice dropped into that rare, velvet register she had heard him use on the phone. “It is, baby girl,” he murmured, his gaze never leaving Rory’s as he planted a tender, protective kiss on the child’s temple.