69 "The Divorce Papers on the Table, a Positive Test in the Dark, and the Husband Who Walked Away for Six Months Just to Keep Me Alive: How a Fake Separation Turned Into a War for Our Unborn Child"

“Dorian, behind you!” I shrieked, lifting my Glock, leaning over the industrial railing of the catwalk, and pulling the trigger with a frantic prayer.

Bang!

The recoil kicked hard against my palm, nearly jarring the weapon from my bleeding hands. The bullet ricocheted off a steel beam inches from Julian’s head, shattering a fluorescent overhead bulb in a shower of white-hot sparks.

Julian cursed, abandoning his target on Dorian and whipping his head upward toward the catwalk, his eyes locking onto me with pure, murderous venom.

“Well, look who decided to join the party!” Julian shouted over the ambient din of the warehouse, raising his pistol toward the balcony.

Marcus reacted instantly, firing two rapid shots from his position behind a stack of crates on the gantry, forcing Julian to dive behind a concrete support pillar for cover.

Down on the main floor, Dorian didn't waste a single millisecond of the distraction.

With an explosive roar, he closed the distance between himself and Julian in three long, athletic strides, slamming his heavy boot directly into Julian’s wrist.

Crack.

Julian screamed as his pistol went flying across the concrete floor, clattering into the dark shadows beneath a stack of pallets.

Before Julian could recover, Dorian grabbed him by the lapels of his expensive charcoal suit, hoisted him off the ground with terrifying strength, and slammed him spine-first against a steel shipping container. The metallic echo reverberated through the entire warehouse.

“You touch my wife,” Dorian’s voice was a low, guttural growl that carried all the way up to the catwalk, vibrating with a cold fury I had never heard in him before, “and I will tear every brick of your family’s empire down until there is nothing left of the Moretti name in this city.”

Julian spat a mouthful of blood onto the concrete, a twisted, defiant grin spreading across his bruised face.

“You think... you think killing me stops this, Cross?” Julian wheezed, gasping for air against Dorian’s tightening grip. “My brother... Vincent knows every single offshore account... every shell company... every corrupt politician on your payroll. The moment I don't check in... the federal indictments drop. Your whole world goes up in smoke.”

Dorian’s expression didn't flicker. His grey eyes were as cold and dead as winter ice.

“Let them drop,” Dorian whispered softly. “Because if you or your brother ever come within a mile of Alina or my child again... federal prison will feel like a five-star resort compared to what I do to you.”

With a final, contemptuous shove, Dorian hurled Julian to the ground like a broken ragdoll. Julian slumped against the steel container, clutching his broken wrist, completely defeated.

Silence descended upon the warehouse—a heavy, smoking silence broken only by the crackle of distant flames and our own ragged breathing.

I stood frozen on the metal catwalk, lowering the Glock slowly as my knees began to shake uncontrollably.

Dorian turned his head slowly, looking up from the blood-stained concrete floor toward the gantry where I stood.

His stormy eyes met mine. For a long, suspended moment, neither of us moved. The six months of agony, the cold separation, the forged divorce papers, the terror of the hospital, and the nightmare of the last twelve hours all seemed to hang in the damp air between us.