Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty

"CALCULATIONS"

Eagan's POV

I don’t look at the pregnancy test that’s resting on my desk. Not directly. It sits in the far corner of my eye — a tiny white stick with two pink lines that change everything and nothing and somehow work both on me at the same time.

“Satellite imagery of Facility Zero,” Liam says; he fans the photos out on my desk. "Best we could get. The rest is highly encoded.”

"And the security?"

"Worse than we thought." He scrolls and taps on one of the grainy images. “Armed guards, rotating shifts. Infrared motion sensors on the perimeter. And this—” he gestures toward a circular structure near the water, “seems like some sort of emergency protocol. Likely for emergency evacuation or..." He hesitates.

“Or disposal,” I say, finishing for him.

Liam nods grimly. “If they know we’re coming, everything in those walls could be gone for good.”

I look over the layout of the facility. A fortress on a private island, technically in international waters but surrounded by Kairos land. The ideal place to hide secrets — or humans.

We’re best, I decide, with a water approach. "Under cover of darkness. Small team. Maximum efficiency."

"And minimal survivors?" Liam asks, though he knows the answer.

"None," I correct him. “If Elara is there, I want nothing unaccounted for. If she isn’t — ” I’m holding his gaze, “—I want nothing at all left, period.

He collects the photographs, making sure not to disturb the pregnancy test. "About that other situation..."

My jaw tightens. "Not now."

“Three days just became tomorrow night,” Liam poads. "We need to discuss it."

"There's nothing to discuss." I take the test, flipping it in my hand. Two lines. As obvious as blood on snow — just like Astrid saw them. "She stays behind."

"She won't agree to that."

“I don’t remember asking for her approval.”

Liam sighs, the sound thick with years of cleaning up my messes. “You invited her to sit at the table. Those were your terms."

"Circumstances have changed."

"Have they?" He dares, more cowardly than most men would on his dare. “Or are you simply waiting for a pretext to put her back in prison?”

My eyes snap to his. "Careful, old friend."

"Someone needs to say it." He limps to the door, his bad leg trailing a bit. "She's changed. You've changed her. Don’t be surprised when the changes aren’t reversed.”

After he’s gone, I drink a whiskey and walk to the window. Below, Love Island City greets you like a captured kingdom — which, in many senses of the word, it is. But the ashes of the Vasquez and Kairos empires are still hot. Their territories now mine. Their assets seized. Their men killed or promising new loyalties.

All according to plan. Except for the woman in my bed sleeping and the life inside her.

The intercom buzzes. “Mr. King, Dr. Winters is here.”

"Send him up."

Dr. Winters has been in my employ for many years. Discreet, competent, and fully aware that his continued existence is contingent on his silence. He walks into my office with his medical bag, his face carefully neutral.

“You did ask for a home visit,” he says, not a question.

“I have a… situation that needs to be verified.”

He gives a single, immediate understanding nod. "The mother?"

"Asleep. This must all happen without her knowing it.'”

Something flits across his face — disapproval, maybe — but he hides it quickly. “I can do blood work, I can confirm the pregnancy, I can check general health markers. But without her going there — “

“Do what you can,” I interrupt. “I have to decide if she is healthy enough to travel.”

"Travel?" He raises an eyebrow. “In early pregnancy, I usually recommend —”

“Advice is not what I’m paying for.” I gesture toward the door. "Third floor, east wing. Marcus will show you."

When he leaves, I go back to the window, whiskey warm in my throat. The pregnancy adds complexity to things. Opens up factors I hadn’t considered. A child — my child — was never in the plan.

But there is something in me that cannot dismiss the idea completely.

I think of Elara, eight when our father sold her. I think of the red room, kept exactly as she left it. The coordinates she carved into her bedpost — a last cry for help I was too late to respond to.

Now there's another child. One with a completely different future ahead of it.

But first, Facility Zero needs to be arsoned.

\---

At dinner, Astrid sits across from me, picking at her food. The dining room lies between us, too big for two, yet too small to hold the tension.

“You’re not eating,” I say.

She looks up, those doe eyes tougher than they used to be. "Neither are you."

I sliced into my steak, and blood pooled on the white plate. “Dr. Winters confirms that you’re about six weeks pregnant. You and the child are both looking healthy.”

Her fork tangs against porcelain. “You examined me while I was asleep?”

"I had your blood tested. A precaution."

“A violation,” she corrects, voice sharp. “Is this how equals talk to each other, Eagan?”

I take a purposeful bite of steak and chew slowly. “You kept your condition a secret from me. That’s not a model of equality.”

"I needed time."

"And I need information. Especially when it interferes with our plans.”

She pushes her plate away. "Our plans?"

"Facility Zero. The timeline has moved up. We leave tomorrow night."

Something glints in her eyes — excitement? Fear? Perhaps both. "Why the rush?"

“Intelligence indicates that they are getting ready to move something — or someone. We can't afford to lose the one lead we have to Elara."

"So we're still going.”

I notice her use of “we” and don’t question it. Not yet. “The parameters of the mission have changed. Increased security. Higher risk."

“And you don’t think I can do it.” Not a question.

I put my knife down and watched her face. The soft features that once made her seem innocent now seem determined, even dangerous. "Can you?"

“I broke two families in one night with you.” She holds my gaze. “I deserve my place in this.”

"And the child?"

Her hand flits to her stomach, so quickly I nearly miss it. "The child is my concern."

"Our concern," I correct her.

A bitter little smile twists her lips. “Is this where you tell me I’m being left behind? For my own protection?"

“Is that so unreasonable?”

“It would be control under the cloak of concern.” She gets up, walks to the window, where I so many times stand myself. Her eyes glint with the reflection of city lights. “Because if I’m really your equal, I make my own choices.” Including this one."

“Even if it means losing our child?”

Her expression hardens as she turns around. “Don’t act like this is about the baby, Eagan. This is about maintaining my subordinacy.”

"You misunderstand." I stand, bridge that space between us.

“This child is part of my bloodline, this child is the continuation. Everything that I’ve built moving forward.”

"A legacy," she says flatly. "Is that all it is to you?"

The phone vibrates before I have the chance to respond. The screen flashes with Liam’s name. I answer immediately.

"Speak."

“Movement at the facility,” Liam reports. “Big convoy just came about an hour ago. They’re putting something — or somebody — on the boats.”

My blood runs cold. "Prepare the teams. We move tonight."

"Tonight? Eagan, we're not ready—"

"Make us ready." I hang up and face Astrid again. "We've run out of time."

Her eyes widen. "Tonight?"

"Yes." I scrutinize her face, looking for weakness, for hesitation. I find none. "Last chance to stay behind."

"Not a chance." She moves closer, close enough for me to smell her skin, to feel the heat radiate off her body. "I'm coming with you."

"It's dangerous."

“So am I.” Her voice gets lower. “Or did you forget what I can do?”

I haven't. I’ve watched her press a knife to a man’s throat and not even blink. Saw her working Blair Vasquez, getting him to divulge secrets that ultimately destroyed her family. Felt her hands, calm and confident, sewing up my wounds after the bombing.

She’s not the frightened girl I bought at auction. She’s become a different thing altogether.

Something of my making.

"Very well," I concede. "But you follow my lead. Stay close. Do exactly as I say."

As long as your orders are sensible.” A smile of small victory curves her lips. "That's the deal."

My phone buzzes again — Liam, no doubt, with more urgent updates. I silence it.

“There is one other thing you should know,” I say to her. "About Facility Zero."

Her smile fades. "What?"

“If, like, Elara’s not there or she is...” I let the thought hang. “The contingency involves explosives. But enough to wipe the entire island off the map.”

"And if she is there?"

"Then we extract her. But understand this, Astrid." I cradle her face in my hands, thumb swiping her cheekbone. “I will choose you if it comes down to finding my sister or getting you out of this place alive. I will choose you.”

A flicker of surprise appears on her features. "Why?"

“Because the dead cannot return. But the living — " I trail my hand down to her belly, laying it lightly over the space where our child is growing, " — the living need to be protected.”

For a moment something soft crosses between us, a fragile understanding, maybe. Then her walls return.

“You don’t have to protect me.” She steps back. "I need your respect."

"You have both," I tell her. “Whether you like it or not.”

Later, I watch her sleep. Moonlight washes over her face, easing the sharp edges she’s cultivated in her time with me. Even in sleep, her hand is flung protectively over her abdomen.

I think of Elara, lost for fifteen years. About the sleepless nights spent mapping out revenge, building an empire just to tear it down.

And now, this surprise detour. This woman. This child.

“I don’t want to hear you act surprised if she won’t change back.” Liam’s voice repeats in my head.

But maybe the biggest surprise of all is how I’ve changed. How that single-minded obsession, which drove me for years, now cohabits with something else. Something so dangerously close to attachment.

I push a piece of hair away from Astrid’s face, doing my best not to wake her. In a couple of hours, we’ll get on a boat and sail straight into the kairos territory. So here we go, gambling everything on the outside possibility that Blair’s last words were more than just another manipulation.

And if they aren’t — if all of this is an elaborate trap — then the city of Love Island will see a new level of carnage. The kind that wipes entire bloodlines from existence.

Including, perhaps, my own.