Guarding the Virgin

Chapter 27

Lyra’s POV

I woke in pieces.

First the cold—concrete beneath my cheek, damp air seeping through my clothes, chilling me to the bone. Then the pain—my wrists bound behind my back with zip ties that cut into my skin, my shoulders screaming from the unnatural position, my head throbbing like someone had taken a hammer to my skull.

Then the smell—mold, rust, something chemical I couldn't identify. Old machinery and stagnant water and fear.

And finally, the fear itself.

Absolute. Consuming. Wrapping around my chest until I could barely breathe. Squeezing my lungs until each inhale was a battle.

I forced my eyes open and found myself in a warehouse. Industrial. Abandoned. Water-stained walls and broken windows letting in slivers of moonlight that painted everything in shades of silver and shadow.

Machinery loomed around me like sleeping monsters—conveyor belts frozen mid-motion, rusted pipes snaking along the ceiling, chains hanging from rafters that creaked in some unfelt breeze.

Somewhere, water dripped in a steady rhythm. Drip. Drip. Drip. Like a countdown to something terrible.

I tried to move and pain lanced through my head—the aftereffect of whatever drug Donovan had injected me with. My stomach lurched and I fought the urge to vomit, terrified of what that might do to the baby.

The baby.

My hands strained against the zip ties, desperate to touch my stomach, to feel some reassurance that my child was still safe inside me. But I couldn't reach. Couldn't do anything except lie on the cold concrete and pray.

Please be okay. Please be okay. Please—

"Finally awake."

Nate's voice came from somewhere to my left. I twisted my head and saw him sitting on a rusted crate a few feet away, legs spread wide, watching me with an expression that made my skin crawl.

He looked different than I remembered. Wilder. Unhinged. Like whatever mask he'd worn at school had been discarded along with any pretense of sanity.

"Don't worry," he said, standing and moving closer. I instinctively tried to curl away from him, my back pressing against something solid—a pillar. "Donovan says I can't touch you yet. You're leverage first."

His smile twisted into something ugly.

"But after your daddy pays up, you're mine. Everything I was promised from the beginning."

"You're insane," I whispered through cracked lips. My throat was raw, dry, aching for water. "Both of you."

"Maybe." He crouched down in front of me, close enough that I could smell his cologne—the same scent he'd worn when we dated, when I thought he cared about me. It made my stomach turn.

"But I've waited a long time for this, Lyra. Ever since Donovan approached me freshman year and told me who you really were. The daughter of Kian Morris, one of the most powerful men on the East Coast." His eyes gleamed. "A golden ticket to money, power, revenge."

Freshman year. He'd been playing me since freshman year. Every date, every kiss, every whispered promise—all of it calculated.

He reached out to touch my face and I jerked away, a growl escaping my throat.

His eyes darkened.

"You were supposed to fall in love with me. Be grateful that someone like me even looked at you." His voice dropped to something venomous. "Instead, you spread your legs for that old man and ruined everything."

"I never loved you," I spat. "I thought I did, but I was wrong. You're nothing. A puppet. Donovan's little errand boy."

The slap came fast and hard, snapping my head to the side, filling my mouth with the copper taste of blood.

Nate grabbed my chin and forced me to look at him, his fingers digging into my jaw hard enough to bruise. "Watch your mouth. Donovan might need you alive, but he didn't say anything about undamaged."

"Nate." Donovan's voice echoed from deeper in the warehouse, sharp with command. "Step away from her. We need her presentable for the video call."

Nate released me with a snarl and retreated to his crate, but his eyes never left me. Hungry. Waiting.

Donovan approached, phone in hand, looking as composed as ever despite the abandoned warehouse setting. He'd changed out of his suit into dark tactical clothing, and for the first time, I saw him clearly. Not the fatherly mentor. Not the concerned benefactor.

The predator he'd always been.

"Your father has agreed to a negotiation," Donovan said, crouching down to my level. "He's quite motivated now that he knows about the baby."

My blood ran cold.

"Congratulations, by the way. I wasn't certain until I saw your medical records—it's amazing what a generous donation to the campus health center can access." He smiled at my horror. "A grandchild. The continuation of the Morris line. Kian will do anything to protect that. Which makes you even more valuable than I anticipated."

"What do you want?" My voice came out stronger than I felt. "Money? Territory? What's the price for fifteen years of planning?"

"I want him to suffer." The mask slipped, showing something raw and hateful beneath. "I want him to feel what I felt when I got the call about Elias. When I had to identify my brother's body in a morgue because Kian Morris decided he was inconvenient."

He stood, composing himself.

"The money and territory are bonuses. But watching Kian choose between his empire and his daughter—knowing that whatever he decides, I win—that's the real payment."

He walked away, phone pressed to his ear. I heard fragments of conversation.

"Midnight. The old processing plant on Route 9. Come alone or she dies. Bring the documents and the access codes. Any sign of your people and I start sending pieces."

I closed my eyes, fighting the despair that threatened to swallow me.

I did this. I pushed Ashton away. Got him fired. Left myself completely unprotected. And now I was here—bound and helpless, a bargaining chip in a war I didn't even know existed until a week ago.

My baby—Ashton's baby—was in danger because of my stupidity. My stubbornness. My inability to trust the one person who actually wanted to keep me safe.

I thought of the moment I signed that complaint. How sure I'd been. How righteous. I'd looked at fabricated evidence and believed it over the man who'd held me while I cried, who'd beaten Nate to protect me, who'd given me a choice instead of forcing me to safety.

I'd been so desperate to feel in control of something—anything—that I'd handed control to the real enemy.

But beneath the despair, something else stirred.

Anger.

At Donovan, for his manipulation. At Nate, for his obsession. At the men who killed my mother. At my father for keeping me in the dark. And at myself—most of all at myself—for falling for their lies.

But anger wasn't going to help me right now. Focus was.

I wasn't going to die here. I wasn't going to let my baby die here.

I just had to survive long enough for someone to find me.

I thought of Ashton. His face when I accused him—the devastation, the desperate need for me to believe him. His voice when he said he loved me, raw and broken and real. His promise that he would protect me and our child no matter what.

He was out there somewhere. I knew it as surely as I knew my own heartbeat.

Even if he hated me for what I did. Even if he never wanted to see me again. Even if I'd destroyed any chance of him forgiving me—he wouldn't abandon me. Wouldn't abandon our baby.

Because that was who Ashton was. Loyal to his bones. Protective to his last breath.

He'd come. He had to come.

I shifted my weight, testing the zip ties, looking for weakness. My wrists were bleeding where the plastic cut in, but I barely felt it. The pain was distant, unimportant. All I felt was determination—cold, hard, absolute.

Whatever it takes, I'm getting out of here.

And when I do, Donovan and Nate are going to learn exactly what happens when you threaten a mother and her child.