CHASING HIS HEIRESS EX-WIFE

Chapter Nine:

"Lock the door."

Nathaniel is already moving before I finish the sentence. He hits the heavy steel bolt with a loud, final clank. The sound echoes in the small room like a gunshot.

Julian stares at the live footage on Nathaniel's phone. His father walks slowly down the bright hospital corridor. Richard Thornton is tall, like Julian, but heavier. Older. He moves like a man who has never once been told no in his entire life. Two large men walk beside him wearing plain clothes. They are not doctors. They are not visitors.

"He brought people inside a hospital," I say quietly.

"He owns three of the board members," Julian answers. His voice is completely flat. "He can bring whoever he wants."

I look at Julian's face. He watches his father on the small screen with an expression I cannot quite read. It is not love. It is not pure hate either. It sits somewhere in between, like an old wound that never fully closed. Something about that look makes my chest feel unexpectedly heavy.

I push the feeling away fast.

"How long before he reaches this floor?" I ask Nathaniel.

"Four minutes. Maybe five."

Victor shifts on the hospital bed. His dark eyes are more alert now. He watches Julian with a sharp, quiet focus that reminds me of a hawk sitting very still before it moves.

"Your father is coming for the key," Victor says. His weak voice carries a surprising amount of weight in the small room. He looks directly at Julian. "He knows you took it from his safe. He tracked your phone here."

Julian reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. He stares at it for one second, then drops it flat on the metal desk. He steps away from it like it is a loaded weapon.

"He has been tracking me this whole time," Julian says. It is not really a question. His jaw is very tight. He looks like a man swallowing something extremely bitter.

"Since you were seventeen," Victor replies simply.

The room gets very quiet after that. Even the beeping machine seems to slow down.

Julian turns his head toward Victor. Something raw and exposed moves across his face. "You knew that."

"I knew many things about your father," Victor says. "Including what he did to my son and his wife on that road." His dark eyes do not blink. "What I did not know was whether the apple fell far enough from the tree."

Julian holds Victor's stare without looking away. A long, terrible silence stretches between the two men. It carries the weight of two decades of damage, death, and a marriage that should never have happened.

An unpredictable emotional turn moves quietly through the room.

"It did not fall far enough," Julian says. His voice breaks on the last word. Just barely. "But I am trying."

Victor says absolutely nothing. He just watches him.

I look away from both of them. My throat feels tight in a way I do not want to examine too closely right now.

"We need a way out of this room," I say. I pull my focus back hard. "Nathaniel, is there another exit?"

Nathaniel is already studying the building layout on his phone screen. His eyes move fast and sharply. "There is a service passage behind the back wall. It connects to the laundry level. From there, we can reach the parking structure without passing the main corridor."

"Victor cannot walk that far," I say.

"I can walk," Victor says immediately.

"You cannot," I tell him firmly.

He gives me a look that could silence a boardroom full of very important men. I give it right back to him. A flicker of something warm crosses his tired face. Pride, maybe. He looks away first.

"There is a wheelchair in the supply room across the hall," Nathaniel says. "I can get it in under sixty seconds."

Julian moves toward the steel door before anyone else reacts. "I will get it." "Absolutely not," I say sharply. "Your father is four floors above us, looking for you specifically. You are the last person who should step into that hallway."

Julian stops. He turns around slowly. His dark eyes meet mine across the small room. The air between us feels loaded with too many things neither of us is saying.

"Then what do you want me to do?" he asks quietly. "Stand here and be useless?"

"Yes," I answer. "For once in your life, stay still and listen to someone else."

Nathaniel makes a very small sound that is almost a laugh. He covers it fast. Julian notices. His eyes cut to Nathaniel with a sharp, hot look that could start a fire on wet wood. But he does not argue. He stays still.

Nathaniel slips out through the steel door fast and silently. The seconds long and painful.

Julian stands in the corner. He watches me check on Victor. He watches me fold the old papers back into the white envelope. He watches me tuck the black key deep inside my pocket. He watches everything I do with a quiet, aching attention that sits heavy on my skin.

"You are not scared," Julian says softly.

"I am terrified," I reply without looking up.

"You do not look it."

"That is the point."

Nathaniel comes back through the door, pushing a small wheelchair. He is slightly out of breath but completely steady. We help Victor sit down carefully. Victor does not complain, which tells me how weak he actually feels.

We move through the narrow service passage in silence. The walls are closed. The lights are dim yellow. Julian walks directly behind me the entire way. I can hear his breathing. Steady now. Controlled. Like he made a quiet decision somewhere between the steel room and this dark hallway.

We reach the parking level. Nathaniel's black car sits twenty feet away.

Then the lights go out completely.

Every single one.

Total darkness swallows the entire floor.

A slow clap echoes from somewhere behind us.

"Well done, Elara," Richard Thornton says from the dark. "You made it further than I expected. But the door behind you is already locked. And the car in front of you has no engine tonight."