Maya put the call on speaker. Her mother begged her to leave the hotel, then went silent when Sebastian asked what his father had done twenty-four years earlier.
“He killed Maya's father,” Elena said. “And the proof is still inside suite 808.”
The line died. A fire alarm locked every elevator in the tower, and security reported Elena missing from dialysis. Sebastian moved Maya into the protected penthouse before she could object. He assigned guards to her brother, suspended the manager who had threatened her job, and set the black emergency ring on the table between them.
“This is no longer about my board,” he said. “Marry me for thirty days and no Vale employee can remove you, question you alone, or keep you from the family archive.”
Maya hated how safety sounded in his voice. “And the baby?”
Sebastian's composure broke for one heartbeat. He knelt in front of her, close enough that his hand hovered over her stomach without touching. “Do I have permission?”
When she nodded, his palm settled carefully against her. The ruthless billionaire closed his eyes as if the two pink lines had given him something money never had.
They signed the marriage license before midnight. The kiss required by the hotel notary began as proof and turned dangerous when Sebastian pulled Maya closer. She felt exactly when his control slipped—and exactly how reluctantly he let her go.
His security chief interrupted with restored footage from suite 808. The video showed Elena entering the room on the night Maya was born, hiding a ledger behind the wall, and meeting Sebastian's father.
The final timestamp was from ten minutes earlier.
Elena was back inside suite 808—and Sebastian's dead father had just entered behind her.