CHAPTER 409: COLLATERAL

Three weeks ago

Sarah

The car didn’t move.

That was the first thing I noticed. The engine was running, the interior was pristine leather and expensive cologne, but we weren’t going anywhere.

We were parked. Waiting.

Ewan Roman sat across from me, his presence filling the space like pressure before a storm. He looked at me the way a surgeon might examine a tumor before deciding whether to excise it or let it kill the patient.

I’d seen powerful men before. My father moved in circles where money talked and influence whispered. But Ewan Roman was different. He didn’t need to speak to command a room. He simply existed, and everything else bent around him.

The silence stretched.

I forced myself to breathe normally, to keep my hands still in my lap, to not fidget or break eye contact. The survival instincts I’d honed since childhood were screaming at me to be careful, to play this exactly right.

Finally, he spoke.

"Are you really carrying my son’s child?"

His voice was quiet. Calm. The kind of calm that preceded violence.

"Yes," I said.

The word came out steady, but my heart was hammering against my ribs. I could feel him weighing my answer, dissecting it for any hint of deception.

Another silence.

Then: "Kael is in love with Aria."

It wasn’t a question. It was a statement of fact, delivered with the same certainty as saying the sky was blue.

"He has been for some time," Ewan continued, his eyes never leaving mine. "Which makes your situation almost unbelievable."

The implication hung between us like a blade.

"Maybe you don’t know Kael as well as you think you do," I said.

It was risky. Probably stupid. But I needed to push back, needed to establish that I wasn’t going to crumble under his scrutiny.

To my surprise, Ewan chuckled.

It was a low, dry sound, like wind through dead leaves.

"You might be right," he admitted. "Kael has always been reckless. Unpredictable. Even as a child, he did things that made no sense to anyone but himself."

For a moment, something almost like fondness flickered in his eyes.

Then it vanished.

"But there’s one thing I know my son would never do," he said, his voice dropping to something colder, sharper. "He would never allow himself to be entangled in a messy situation like this. Kael cuts things clean at the end, even when he doesn’t realize he’s doing it. It’s instinct for him."

He leaned forward slightly, and the temperature in the car seemed to drop.

"Which means that if you’re sitting here, Miss Brown, you must have gotten him in a position where he cannot save himself."

The accusation settled over me like a shroud.

My throat felt tight, but I forced myself to hold his gaze.

"Your little stunt at the gala," Ewan continued, "has cost me quite a few bumps in our otherwise smooth-running empire. It’s also made Kael unreachable. And that bastard can be very stubborn when he wants to be."

"I had no choice," I said, hating how defensive I sounded. "It was the only way. Kael refused to accept responsibility."

Ewan studied me for a long moment, his expression unreadable.

Then he shifted topics.

"Your parents," he said. "Your father works in corporate law, your mother in investment banking. I’ve had a few encounters with them over the years. Non-problematic people. The kind who know how to avoid unnecessary situations."

I understood immediately what he was doing.

He’d done his background check. He knew everything about me, about my family, about our place in the hierarchy of wealth and influence.

"You must have thought ahead," Ewan said, "about what it would mean for your future now that you’ve involved yourself with a Roman."

I froze.

The same threat Andrew had made earlier. The same suffocating reality closing in around me from all sides.

"A prenatal DNA test will be conducted in two days," Ewan continued, his tone businesslike now, clinical. "If your claims turn out to be false, then..."

He didn’t finish the sentence.

He didn’t need to.

The threat in his eyes was crystal clear.

"However," he said, "if the child truly belongs to Kael, then you will take up the Roman name. I cannot have my first grandchild be the child of a mistress. It would put a stain on our legacy. Those bastards would have something to smear our name with."

He meant the other families. The competitors who circled the Romans like sharks, waiting for any sign of weakness.

"Do you understand?" Ewan asked.

"Yes," I said.

I nodded, trying to look compliant, trying to look like I accepted his terms without question.

But inside, I was screaming.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. This wasn’t supposed to spiral out of control like this.

"Take care of yourself and the baby," Ewan said, his voice almost gentle now. "And don’t try anything funny."

It sounded like concern. It was a warning.

"Yes, sir," I managed.

He gestured toward the door.

The bodyguards opened it from the outside, and I stepped out onto the sidewalk, my legs unsteady beneath me.

The door shut behind me with a solid thunk, and the car pulled away from the curb, disappearing into the morning traffic.

I stood there for a moment, trembling.

The air felt too thin. My pulse was racing. Ewan Roman’s presence still clung to me like smoke, suffocating and invasive.

I needed to fix this. Needed to get ahead of it before everything collapsed.

I turned and walked back into the building, my heels clicking against the marble floor as I headed for the elevator.

By the time I reached Kael’s floor, my hands had stopped shaking.

Rose’s desk was empty now which almost unsettled me but,

I didn’t care.

I walked straight to Kael’s office and pushed the door open without knocking.

And froze.

Rose was pressed back against the desk, her hands braced against Andrew’s chest, trying to push him away. His body caged hers, one hand on the desk beside her hip, the other reaching for her waist.

Her expression was uncomfortable. Trapped.

The moment she saw me, relief flooded her face.

"We need to talk," I snapped at Andrew.

He turned slowly, lazily, like I’d interrupted something trivial. His shift gave Rose just enough space to squeeze out from between him and the desk, and she practically bolted for the door, not looking back.

Andrew watched her go with mild amusement, then turned that same lazy gaze on me.

"I didn’t think you’d come back so soon," he said.

"I might need your help after all," I said, my voice tight.

His smile widened.

"Let me guess," he said. "My father reached out to you already."

Of course he knew.

"You must be desperate now," Andrew continued, reached for the bottle sitting on the desk, pouring himself a drink.

I wanted to scream at him, to wipe that smirk off his face, but I forced myself to stay calm.

"I’ll do what you want," I said. "But you need to protect me from Ewan. Because no matter how influential my parents are, they won’t stand a chance if he finds out I lied."

Andrew took a slow sip of his drink, considering.

"What did he say to you?" he asked.

"He wants a prenatal DNA test in two days."

The words came out flat, emotionless, but I could feel the panic thrumming beneath my skin.

Andrew studied me for a moment, then set his glass down.

"Don’t worry," he said. "I’ll make the arrangements. We’ll get the results we need."

His confidence should have been reassuring.

Instead, it felt like a noose tightening around my neck.

"And after that?" I asked.

"After that," Andrew said, "we continue as planned. You play the role of the wronged mother-to-be. Kael plays the role of the villain. And I play the role of the concerned brother trying to hold this family together."

He smiled, and it was the coldest thing I’d ever seen.

"It’s almost poetic, don’t you think?"

I didn’t answer.

Because at the back of my mind, beneath all the panic and calculation and desperation, there was only one thought.

Aria.

I needed to find her. Needed to explain. Needed to make her understand that this was all for her, that everything I’d done was to bring her back to me.

But when I pulled out my phone and tried her number again, I got the same automated message.

This number is no longer in service.

I tried her email. Her social media. Everything.

Nothing.

She’d vanished.

Completely.

And standing there in Kael’s office, with Andrew watching me like a predator watches prey, I realized something that made my blood run cold.

I’d thought I was orchestrating this. I’d thought I was in control.

But Aria was gone.

Kael was unreachable.

Ewan was watching me with the focus of a man who knew how to destroy people without lifting a finger.

And Andrew was using me like a tool, a disposable piece in whatever game he was playing.

I wasn’t the architect anymore.

I was the collateral damage.

And the fire I’d started was about to consume everything.