Chapter 5: Collateral Damage
915 Words
The threat came quietly.
It always did.
I was halfway through unpacking the last of my things—things I still refused to think of as mine—when my phone buzzed. Unknown number. No preview.
I stared at the screen longer than necessary before answering.
“Hello?”
Silence.
Then a breath. Measured. Deliberate.
“You should have stayed gone.”
The line went dead.
My pulse spiked so hard it made my vision blur. I stood frozen, phone pressed to my ear, listening to nothing. When I checked the call log, there was no number. Just No Caller ID.
A familiar cold settled into my bones.
This wasn’t a journalist.
This wasn’t curiosity.
This was a warning.
I locked the phone and set it down carefully, like it might explode if I moved too fast. For a moment, I considered saying nothing. Keeping it to myself. Silence was, after all, what I’d been paid for.
Then I heard Lucien’s voice behind me.
“What happened?”
I turned. He stood in the doorway, jacket off, sleeves rolled, eyes sharp and already searching my face like he knew something was wrong before I did.
“Nothing,” I said too quickly.
He didn’t buy it.
He crossed the room in three strides, took my phone without asking, and unlocked it. I didn’t bother protesting. We were already past the point where pretending I had privacy meant anything.
He scanned the screen, jaw tightening.
“You got a call,” he said. Not a question.
“Yes.”
“From who?”
“I don’t know.”
His eyes lifted slowly. “What did they say?”
I hesitated.
That was my mistake.
His gaze hardened. “Maya.”
“They told me I should have stayed gone,” I said quietly. “That’s it.”
He went still.
Not angry. Not panicked.
Dangerously calm.
He turned away, already dialing a number. “I want a trace on every incoming call to this residence in the last forty-eight hours,” he said into the phone. “Yes. Now.”
He ended the call and looked at me again, this time with something different in his eyes.
Not hatred.
Assessment.
“This is because of last night,” I said. “You put me in front of them.”
“I put you in front of my board,” he replied. “This isn’t them.”
“Then who?”
His silence answered me louder than words.
“Lucien,” I pressed. “Who did I just piss off?”
He studied me for a long moment, as if deciding how much truth I could handle.
“There are people,” he said finally, “who believed the scandal ended unfinished. People who lost money. Influence. Protection.”
“And they think that’s my fault.”
“They think you know where the rest of the evidence is.”
My chest tightened. “I don’t.”
“I know.”
I stared at him. “You… believe me?”
His gaze didn’t waver. “I know when someone’s lying to protect themselves. You’re lying to protect someone else.”
The words landed like a blow.
Before I could respond, his phone rang. He answered it immediately, listened, then swore under his breath.
“They traced the call,” he said. “It bounced through three servers, all offshore. Professional.”
Fear crept in, slow and unwelcome.
“What happens now?” I asked.
He moved closer, stopping just in front of me. Not invading. Guarding.
“Now,” he said, voice low, “you stop moving around this apartment alone.”
“I’m not a child.”
“No,” he agreed. “You’re leverage.”
I flinched.
He noticed. Something in his expression shifted—regret, maybe. Or irritation at himself.
“They won’t touch you,” he continued. “Not while you’re under my roof.”
“And if I wasn’t?”
His eyes darkened. “Then I’d already be planning your extraction.”
The word sent a chill down my spine.
“This is what your world does to people,” I said. “Turns them into targets.”
“You were a target long before me,” he replied. “I just made it visible.”
I looked away, swallowing hard.
After a moment, he spoke again, quieter this time.
“You don’t leave tonight.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“No,” he said. “I mean my sight.”
I met his gaze.
“I’ll have security posted outside your door,” he continued. “And inside.”
Inside?
“That’s not necessary.”
“It is,” he said firmly. “And it’s non-negotiable.”
“Lucien—”
“Maya,” he interrupted, voice sharp. “This isn’t control. This is containment.”
The word echoed uncomfortably.
He stepped back then, giving me space, as if he knew he’d already crossed a line.
“Get some rest,” he said. “Tomorrow, we start finding out who’s really pulling the strings.”
As he turned to leave, I realized something that twisted my stomach in a way I didn’t want to examine too closely.
The danger wasn’t just circling me.
It had already entered the house.
And for the first time since signing that contract, I wasn’t sure whose protection scared me more—the enemies outside…
Or the man who now considered me his responsibility.
- Writer
