Chapter 9: No More Orders
“My answer may decide whether I keep my power—or keep my family.”
Claire held his gaze. “That isn’t a choice you get to put in my hands.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” She glanced at the phone in his grip. “Because if you go to this meeting, it’s not because I told you to. If you don’t, it’s not because I asked you to. And our child is not a reason you get to use for either decision.”
Gabriel’s jaw flexed once. “You’re right.”
“I need you to decide what you can live with. Not what you think will make me stay.”
For a moment he said nothing. Claire couldn’t tell whether he was angry, frightened, or simply trying to hear her without turning her words into an instruction.
Then he set his phone facedown on the table.
“I won’t answer the intermediary tonight,” he said. “I’ll speak with counsel first.”
“That sounds like a decision.”
“It’s a decision not to let someone else set the terms before I know what I’m agreeing to.” His voice stayed even. “It isn’t an answer about the meeting yet.”
“Then don’t call it one.”
“I won’t.”
Claire picked up the clinic paper and folded it along its existing crease. There was no immediate concern, the clinician had said. A routine scan was next. Normal things, ordinary appointments—things she wanted to be able to think about without a stranger’s warning buzzing in her pocket.
“Are you asking me to come with you?” she said.
“No. I’m asking whether you want to know when I’m back.”
“I do. That’s different.”
“I understand.”
“I’m not sure you do yet.”
He nodded, accepting the correction without trying to turn it into an argument. “I’ll tell you what I decide. And I won’t blame you for it.”
Claire looked down at her hands. She wanted to believe him. She also wanted a life in which belief wasn’t required before she could feel safe.
“I’m going to work tomorrow,” she said.
“I know.”
“I’ll decide how I get there.”
“Yes.”
“And if I want Eli to drive, I’ll ask him. That doesn’t mean anyone follows me into the building or waits around the corner.”
“I’ll make sure he understands.”
“You don’t make sure. I’ll tell him.”
A brief pause. “You’re right.”
Claire unlocked her phone and opened the message thread Eli had given her. She asked whether he was available to drive her to work in the morning, and specified that he was to drop her off and leave. No waiting nearby. No watching the entrance. If she needed a ride home, she would contact him.
His reply arrived a minute later: Understood. Your call.
She showed Gabriel the screen. “That’s what respecting a boundary looks like.”
“I see that.”
“Good.”
Gabriel took his coat from the back of the chair. “I have a meeting with my attorney in the morning. Eli will come with me.”
“About Marco?”
“About my options. I won’t ask you to make them for me.”
Claire didn’t tell him what she hoped his options would be. It wasn’t her job to shape the answer so he could later say he had chosen it for her.
“Then go find out what they are,” she said.
Gabriel paused by the door. “Claire—”
“Don’t promise me this ends well.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
That surprised her enough to make her look up.
“I was going to say I’ll be honest about what I learn.”
“Start there.”
He left without asking her to reassure him.
The next morning, Claire dressed for work slowly, choosing the blue sweater she liked rather than the one that hid her pregnancy. The curve beneath it was no longer something she could disguise, and she was tired of dressing as though she owed the world an apology.
Eli texted when he was downstairs. Claire checked the lobby before stepping out, as she had been doing since the photograph arrived. She saw no unfamiliar car, no person lingering with a phone. That proved nothing, but she didn’t let uncertainty make the decision for her.
Eli stood beside the passenger door. He didn’t reach for her bag or ask whether she’d slept.
“Morning,” he said.
“Morning. You remember the terms?”
“I drop you off. I leave. You contact me if you want a ride later.”
“Exactly.”
At work, Maya met her near the entrance, carrying two coffees. She handed Claire one without asking whether she wanted to talk about the video.
“You look like yourself today,” Maya said.
“I am myself today.”
“Fair point.”
They went inside together. The morning moved through its familiar motions: orders, ringing phones, a delivery that arrived late, a customer who wanted someone else to blame. Claire answered questions, made notes, and fixed a scheduling problem. Nobody asked whether Gabriel DeLuca was the father. Nobody stared at her stomach when she passed.
For a few hours, the world was allowed to be ordinary.
At lunch, Maya found Claire checking her phone.
“Waiting on someone?” she asked.
“No. Just checking.”
“Anything new?”
“Not from the reporter. Not from Nathan.”
Maya’s expression tightened at his name, but she didn’t push. Claire had already saved the messages Nathan sent after she told him not to contact her. She had not answered them. His silence since then had felt less like respect than a pause, though she couldn’t prove that.
Gabriel had not texted either. Claire reminded herself that she hadn’t asked him to report every movement. She had asked him to tell her what he decided. There was a difference.
Near the end of her shift, her manager called her into the small office by the back hall. Maya came too, at Claire’s request.
“There’s a man outside asking for you,” the manager said. “He says he’s an old friend.”
Claire already knew.
“Did he give his name?”
“Nathan Brooks.”
Claire’s stomach tightened. She set her phone on the desk and stood.
“Please don’t let him in.”
“We won’t,” the manager said. “Do you want building security?”
“Yes. And I want someone with me while I leave. I’m calling for help now.”
Maya nodded. “I’ll stay.”
Claire called the building’s security desk and reported that Nathan was outside asking for her after she had told him not to contact her. She gave them his name and asked them to handle it without bringing him inside. Her voice sounded steadier than her hands felt.
When she and Maya reached the front area, Nathan stood beyond the glass doors, shoulders squared beneath a charcoal coat. He looked polished, as always. His gaze found Claire at once.
She stopped several feet from the entrance. Maya stayed beside her. A uniformed guard moved toward the doors.
Nathan raised his hands slightly, a gesture meant to look harmless.
“Claire. I just want to talk.”
“You were told not to contact me.”
“I saw the posts. Your workplace wasn’t hard to find.”
“That doesn’t give you permission to come here.”
His eyes flicked toward Maya, then back to Claire. “I’m not here to cause trouble.”
“Then leave.”
The guard stepped closer to the entrance. Nathan’s smile thinned.
“You don’t know what you’re mixed up in,” he said.
“I’m not having this conversation.”
“Claire, this is important.”
“I said no.”
She turned away. Maya touched her elbow, ready to walk with her, but Nathan’s voice followed through the glass.
“I have proof Gabriel is hiding something from you.”
Claire stopped.
May you like
Nathan looked directly at her, his expression suddenly stripped of its practiced amusement.
“Something he should have told you already.”
