Chapter 6 - The Boy Who Could Not Choose
Gregory Pierce arrived at Falco Tower at 2:13 in the morning.
Alone.
That was either brave or stupid.
Clara suspected stupid.
Security cameras caught him standing outside the private entrance in a black overcoat, soaked from freezing rain, looking up at the tower as if it were a cathedral built by the devil.
Gabriel watched from his office monitor.
Marco stood behind him. “Want him removed?”
“No.”
“Want him scared?”
Gabriel’s mouth twitched.
“He already is.”
Clara stood near the window, hidden from the lobby feed, wearing an oversized sweater and slippers. Her pulse had not slowed since Marco told them Gregory was downstairs.
“You don’t have to see him,” Gabriel said.
Clara hated how often he said things like that.
Not because they were wrong.
Because every time he gave her a choice, some broken part of her remembered how long she had lived without them.
“I know.”
“And?”
She looked at the screen.
Gregory had one hand pressed against the intercom. His hair was wet. His face was gray with exhaustion.
Once, she would have run to him.
Once, she would have believed his misery proved love.
Now she saw something else.
A man who had arrived only after consequences reached his own door.
“I’ll see him,” she said. “But not alone.”
Gabriel nodded.
The meeting room on the forty-eighth floor was all glass and steel. Clara sat at one end of the table with Sofia beside her. Gabriel stood near the wall. Elias sat with a recorder visible in front of him.
When Gregory entered, he stopped as if struck.
His eyes moved over Clara’s face, her belly, her hands.
Alive.
The word seemed to pass through him silently.
“Clara.”
She said nothing.
He took one step forward.
Gabriel’s voice stopped him.
“Stay there.”
Gregory looked at him with hatred.
“This is between me and my fiancée.”
Clara finally spoke.
“I’m not your fiancée.”
Pain flashed across Gregory’s face.
“You still have the ring?”
“No.”
He looked at her bare hand.
That small absence did more damage than any speech could have.
“I thought you were dead,” he whispered.
“You helped them make the world think that.”
“No. I didn’t know about the memorial until—”
“But you stood there.”
Gregory’s mouth closed.
Clara leaned back carefully.
“You stood there while your mother called me unstable. You stood there after reading a report you knew was false.”
His eyes flicked toward Gabriel.
“Did he tell you that?”
“Dr. Reeve did.”
Gregory went paler.
Elias gently touched the recorder. “This conversation is being recorded.”
Gregory laughed once, bitterly.
“Of course it is.”
Gabriel stepped closer to the wall.
“Be grateful. It encourages honesty.”
Gregory looked at Clara again.
“I took the first test because I wanted to prove them wrong.”
“Who?”
“My mother. The board. Everyone who said you planned it. That you got pregnant to secure your place.”
Clara’s voice was quiet.
“And when the test proved the baby was yours?”
His face twisted.
“I was happy.”
The cruelty of that nearly undid her.
“Then what happened?”
Gregory sat without being invited. He looked like a man older than thirty-two by at least a decade.
“My mother found out. She said the trust clause would ruin everything. She said if you had power, Falco would get to you. She said you’d take the child and sell our company to him piece by piece.”
Gabriel’s expression did not change.
Clara laughed softly.
“Funny. I didn’t even know the clause existed.”
“I know that now.”
“You knew it then.”
Gregory’s eyes filled.
“I didn’t know what to believe.”
“Yes, you did.”
Her voice sharpened.
“You believed the first test when it made you happy. You believed the second when it made you safe.”
He flinched.
The room went silent.
Then Gregory reached into his coat and pulled out a small silver flash drive.
Marco moved instantly.
Gabriel lifted one hand, stopping him.
Gregory placed the drive on the table and slid it toward Clara.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Emails. Between my mother, Reeve, our general counsel, and a board member named Victor Sloane. I copied them from her private archive.”
Elias sat up.
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed.
“Why?”
Gregory swallowed.
“Because my mother plans to have Clara declared unfit before the baby is born.”
Clara’s hands went cold.
“What?”
“She filed sealed affidavits. Paid witnesses. Former employees from your apartment building. People from the diner. They’ll say you had emotional episodes. That you threatened to harm yourself. That you were obsessed with the Pierce name.”
Clara shook her head. “No.”
Gregory’s voice broke. “She wants custody transferred to me at birth.”
“To you?” Clara asked.
He looked down.
“At first.”
Gabriel understood first.
“Then she has you declared temporarily incompetent under pressure from scandal, and she controls the child through the company.”
Gregory closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
Clara stood.
Sofia rose with her.
Clara pressed both hands to the table, breathing hard.
“You came here because you’re afraid she’ll use you too.”
“I came because I was wrong.”
“No.” Clara’s eyes burned. “You were cruel. Wrong is forgetting an anniversary. Wrong is missing a call. You took a lie and shoved your pregnant fiancée into a storm.”
Gregory began to cry.
Once, that would have softened her.
Now it only made her tired.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Clara stared at him.
The apology hung there, small and useless against the size of what he had done.
“Do you want forgiveness?” she asked.
His lips parted.
Then he looked at Gabriel, at Sofia, at Elias, at the recorder, at the flash drive.
At last, he said something true.
“I don’t deserve it.”
“No,” Clara said. “You don’t.”
He nodded, broken.
“But you can still tell the truth.”
“I will.”
“Publicly.”
Fear returned to his eyes.
“My mother will destroy me.”
Clara’s hand moved to her stomach.
“She tried to destroy your child.”
Gregory looked at her belly, and something in him collapsed fully.
The boy who could not choose finally saw the cost of letting others choose for him.
“I’ll do it,” he whispered.
Gabriel spoke for the first time in several minutes.
“When?”
Gregory looked at him.
“You’ll arrange it?”
“No. You will. Men who inherit microphones should learn how to use them.”
Gregory gave a hollow laugh.
“I deserve that.”
“You deserve worse.”
“Gabriel,” Clara said.
He went quiet.
Gregory stood slowly.
“Can I…” His voice failed. He looked at Clara’s belly. “Can I know if the baby is okay?”
Clara almost said no.
It rose in her throat, sharp and justified.
But the child moved again, and she remembered that someday, this baby might ask who Gregory had been before he became a cautionary tale.
“She is alive,” Clara said.
Gregory’s face changed.
“She?”
Clara had not meant to reveal it.
The room softened for one dangerous second.
Gregory covered his mouth.
“A girl.”
Clara held herself steady.
“Yes.”
He nodded, tears spilling freely now.
“What are you naming her?”
Clara looked at Gabriel.
She did not know why.
Gabriel looked away first.
“I don’t know yet,” she said.
Gregory nodded again.
“I’ll make it right.”
Clara’s voice was very quiet.
“You can’t.”
He absorbed that.
Then she added, “But you can stop making it worse.”
When Gregory left Falco Tower, he did not look back.
By sunrise, Elias had verified the flash drive.
It contained enough to open investigations, trigger injunctions, and set half the Pierce board on fire.
But buried inside one email thread was a line from Evelyn Pierce to Victor Sloane that made Gabriel summon everyone into his office before Clara had finished breakfast.
Clara read the printed email once.
Then again.
The words blurred.
If Hayes survives to delivery, shift to contingency: remove infant from site before birth record is filed.
Sofia cursed under her breath.
Nina’s face lost all humor.
Gabriel took the paper from Clara’s shaking hand.
“No more waiting,” he said.
Clara looked up.
“What does that mean?”
His eyes were black with war.
“It means Evelyn Pierce just threatened a child who has not taken her first breath.”
He turned to Marco.
“Bring every file. Every witness. Every enemy she ever bought and forgot.”
Then he looked at Clara.
“And pack a bag.”
Her heart lurched.
“Why?”
“Because Falco Tower is secure.”
May you like
He paused.
“But not secure enough for what comes next.”
