Chapter 62 The Vulnerable Shield
Chapter 62 The Vulnerable Shield
Alexander
"Back away from her right now, Arthur, or I will end you in front of every reporter in this building."
My voice was a low, lethal vibration that cut through the bright camera flashes of the Grand Crystal Hall. I stepped between my father and Sandra, my muscles locked, ready to strike. The crowd of billionaires and journalists was completely still, watching the public scandal unfold like a car crash. My father had just called my wife by her mother's name, Eleanor, exposing a dark family history that ran much deeper than any modern tech merger.
The old, cynical lie didn't even register in my mind anymore. The secret identity she held as Alpha-X, the stock options, the Chairman seat—none of it mattered. The only thing that existed was the sudden, terrifying drop in her energy as she stood beside me.
"You can't hide the truth forever, Alexander," Arthur said, a slow, predatory smile cutting across his face. "She looks exactly like her. She breathes like her. She even carries the same genetic sequence I spent thirty years trying to capture."
I turned my head slightly to look at Sandra. Her usual witty defense mechanism was gone. Her eyes were wide, staring into the middle distance as the unfiltered internal shock of the revelation completely broke her composure. The high-stakes pressure of the past few weeks, the genetic complication with the pregnancy, and now the return of her mother's tormentor was too much. Her skin turned a terrible, porcelain white.
"Alexander..." she whispered, her voice barely a breath.
Before I could grab her hand, her eyes rolled back. Her knees buckled, and she collapsed.
I moved on pure instinct, my arms sweeping out to catch her before she hit the cold marble floor. I pulled her small body against my chest, lifting her up entirely. Her head fell back against my shoulder, completely limp. The emerald silk of her dress bunched in my hands, and for the first time in my life, an absolute, paralyzing panic exploded inside me.
Why is my heart racing? It wasn't the threat of Arthur taking over the Draken Group. It was the terrifying realization that she wasn't breathing properly. The biological timer in her veins was spiking under the stress, and I was completely powerless to stop it with money or leverage.
"Call an ambulance!" I roared at my head of security, my cold, dominant facade completely shattering into raw, unfiltered terror. "Clear the north exit! Get the private medical team on the line right now!"
The ballroom erupted into pure chaos. The journalists didn't back away; they lunged forward. Hundreds of cameras flashed simultaneously, capturing the high-tension moment from every angle. The blinding white lights reflected off the tears I didn't even know were forming in my eyes. The media had spent years calling me the "Ruthless CEO" who felt nothing, but right now, every lens in the city was capturing a picture of a man who was completely undone by the woman in his arms.
"Get those cameras away from my wife!" I shouted, shielding her face with my jacket as my guards formed a physical wall around us, shoving reporters back. We had successfully defeated Arthur's attempt to isolate her, but the physical price was tearing us apart.
I didn't wait for the security team to clear a path. I carried her through the crowd, her hand dangling lifelessly against my chest. The attractive, dangerous connection that had bound us together through this fake contract was now a matter of life and death. I needed to get her out of this building, away from my father, and into a sterile room before the strain killed both her and our unborn child.
As I broke through the back doors of the gala and sprinted toward the armored limousine, the central display screen on my car’s dashboard automatically turned on. A live notification from Draken General Hospital flashed across the glass, showing that the power grid in the facility’s intensive care unit had just been remotely cut.
"Alexander," my security chief whispered from the front seat, his face pale as he stared at his tablet. "It’s a synchronized strike. Your brother Lucas didn't just shut down the hospital backup generators—he just uploaded the raw ultrasound file and the genetic sequence report to the global media server."
I looked down at Sandra as a sudden, sharp tremor ran through her body, her hand tightening around my shirt in her unconscious state as the car's speakers began to broadcast a live news alert:
Breaking news from the Draken Gala. The replacement bride is not just an impostor; medical data confirms she is carrying a prohibited biological asset, and the federal government has just issued an order to seize the child at birth.