Chapter 3 - The Hidden House
The house stood three hours outside the city.
No gates.
No guards.
No cameras visible from the road.
It was surrounded by pine trees and rocky hills, with a narrow lake behind it.
I looked at Dorian.
“This?”
“Yes.”
“It looks normal.”
“That was the idea.”
Inside, the house was warm.
There was a fireplace.
Bookshelves.
A kitchen with windows overlooking the lake.
And, strangely, a room painted pale yellow.
I stopped.
“What is this?”
Dorian remained in the doorway.
“The room I built six months ago.”
I turned toward him.
“For who?”
He looked at me.
“You.”
My chest tightened.
“You built a nursery?”
“Yes.”
“But you told me children were too dangerous.”
“I was lying.”
“Why?”
“Because I had already started imagining one.”
I stared at him.
He walked into the room.
There were no baby pictures.
No toys.
Nothing finished.
Just walls, a crib still in its box, and a small wooden rocking chair.
“You did this six months ago?”
“Yes.”
“Before our last anniversary?”
“Yes.”
“Before you stopped coming home?”
“Yes.”
I turned toward him.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because by then I had discovered the leak.”
I swallowed.
“And you thought it was safer if I hated you.”
“Yes.”
The answer hurt.
But there was something else.
“You said you chose me over Marcel.”
He nodded.
“Who is he?”
Dorian sat in the rocking chair.
“Marcel Vane was my father's closest partner. When my father died, Marcel took me under his protection.”
“Was he family?”
“No.”
“But you trusted him.”
“I did.”
“What changed?”
“Power.”
He explained that Marcel had built a criminal network beneath legitimate companies. Dorian inherited parts of it but tried to dismantle the illegal operations.
Marcel saw that as betrayal.
“Why didn't he kill you?”
“Because dead enemies cannot be controlled. Living enemies can be made examples of.”
I shivered.
“And me?”
“You are his leverage.”
The next morning, my sister Mara arrived.
She was twenty-eight, practical, stubborn, and the only person in my life who had ever been willing to tell Dorian that his suit made him look like an undertaker.
She hugged me first.
Then she looked at my stomach.
“You're really pregnant?”
I nodded.
Her eyes filled with tears.
Then she looked at Dorian.
“What did you do?”
He blinked.
“I don't know.”
She pointed at him.
“That's the problem.”
I laughed for the first time in days.
Mara stayed.
For two weeks, we lived in the hidden house.
Dorian attended meetings remotely.
I went to doctor appointments through a private medical service.
We began talking again.
Actually talking.
Not about security.
Not about contracts.
About us.
He told me he loved old jazz.
I told him I thought jazz made him look pretentious.
He admitted he had never watched a romantic comedy.
I forced him to watch three.
He complained through all of them.
Then I caught him crying at the end of one.
“I wasn't crying.”
“You were.”
“The room was dry.”
Mara laughed from the kitchen.
“Sure.”
It should have felt impossible.
Instead it felt strangely easy.
Until the night I woke to a strange sound outside.
A car door.
Then footsteps.
I walked into the hallway.
Dorian was already awake.
His gun was in his hand.
“Stay behind me.”
“You always say that.”
“This time I mean it.”
We heard glass break.
Dorian moved.
The alarm didn't sound.
That was the frightening part.
Someone had disabled it.
He looked toward the wall panel.
“The code was changed.”
My stomach dropped.
“By who?”
He looked at me.
“Someone who knew where we were.”
Mara came downstairs.
“What's happening?”
Dorian pushed her toward the basement.
“Safe room.”
We hurried inside.
The steel door closed.
Three minutes passed.
Then five.
No shots.
No shouting.
Finally Dorian opened the door.
The house was untouched.
Except for one room.
The nursery.
I ran there.
The wooden rocking chair had been smashed.
On the wall, someone had written one sentence.
HE WILL NEVER MEET HIS CHILD.
I couldn't breathe.
Dorian entered behind me.
His face changed when he saw the message.
He touched my shoulder.
“I'm sorry.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
“What?”
“You don't get to apologize for their choices.”
I looked at him.
“You told me I needed to trust you.”
“Yes.”
“Then I'm trusting you.”
His hand tightened around mine.
Mara looked from us to the wall.
“Someone knew the exact location.”
Dorian nodded.
“There is one person who had access to the coordinates.”
“Who?”
He did not answer.
Instead he walked to the kitchen.
I followed.
He opened an old drawer.
Inside was a photograph.
Marcel Vane.
Beside him stood a younger man.
I recognized the younger man immediately.
It was Luca.
Dorian's most trusted lieutenant.
I stared.
“That's impossible.”
Dorian said nothing.
“Luca has been with you for years.”
“Yes.”
“And he knows everything.”
“Yes.”
My heart sank.
“Is he the traitor?”
Dorian's eyes remained on the photograph.
“I don't know.”
“But you suspect him.”
“I suspect everyone.”
A message appeared on his phone.
One sentence.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT HER.
Dorian stared at it.
Then another message arrived.
NEXT TIME, I'LL TAKE THE BABY BEFORE HE IS BORN.
His face became terrifyingly calm.
I had seen that expression before.
It was the expression of the man the city feared.
I stepped closer.
“Dorian.”
He looked at me.
“Promise me you won't become a monster over this.”
His eyes softened.
“I'll promise you something better.”
“What?”
“I'll become the man our child deserves.”
That night, he moved the entire security operation to the house.
But something had changed.
For the first time, I did not see Dorian's protection as a wall between us.
I saw it as a promise.
May you like
And I began to understand that the war around us was no longer about his empire.
It was about whether our child would ever get the chance to know him.
