The numbers swam in front of Audrey’s eyes.
99.999%.
The world, which had been a screaming vortex of sound and fear, went completely silent. The weight of the last ten days, the last few months, lifted all at once. It was so sudden, so total, she felt like she might float away.
A sound tore from her throat. A choked sob that was half laugh, half gasp.
Tears streamed down her face, hot and cleansing. She wasn’t crying from sadness. She was crying because the terror was over. The single, most fundamental fear had been vaporized.
Kian let the paper fall from his hand. It drifted to the floor like a feather. He didn’t look at it. He looked only at her.
His own eyes were shining, his expression cracked wide open with a raw, breathtaking relief that mirrored her own.
He pulled her into his arms, his hold so tight it was almost painful. She clung to him, burying her face in his chest, her sobs shaking her entire body. He wrapped his arms around her, one hand tangling in her hair, the other pressing her impossibly closer.
“It’s you,” she wept into his shirt. “Oh my god, Kian, it’s you.”
“It was always me,” he whispered, his voice thick with emotion. He was shaking, she realized. The strong, unshakeable man was trembling against her. “It was always us.”
He pulled back just enough to frame her face with his hands, his thumbs wiping away her tears. He was laughing now, a low, incredulous sound of pure joy.
“You and me,” he said, his forehead resting against hers. “We made a person, Audrey.”
The simple, profound truth of it hit her like a lightning strike. This baby wasn’t a mistake. It wasn’t a trap. It wasn’t a product of confusion or obligation. It was a product of them. Of that one, secret, desperate night when two lonely people found each other.
She surged forward and kissed him. It wasn’t a kiss of passion, but of homecoming. Of certainty. It was a seal on the truth they had just been handed. It was fierce and desperate and full of promises they didn’t need to speak.
When they broke apart, they were both breathless, both laughing through the last of their tears.
The relief was so immense, it was intoxicating. For the first time, she could look forward without a cloud of doubt hanging over her. The ghost of Cole, whispering his poison, vanished in the bright, clean light of the truth. He will abandon you too. The threat was meaningless now. Kian wasn’t just staying because he was a good man. He was staying because this was his child. His family.
“Your mother,” Audrey said, the name no longer holding the same terrifying power. “Cassandra. The whole world thinks…”
Kian’s smile didn’t fade, but something behind his eyes shifted. The overwhelming joy began to cool, to harden into something else. Something sharp and dangerous.
He looked down at the paper on the floor, the simple sheet that had changed everything. Then he looked back at her, his gaze full of a new, chilling resolve.
“The world thinks what my mother wants it to think,” he said, his voice dropping to a low, predatory calm. “She launched a public war based on a lie.”
He gently smoothed a strand of hair from Audrey’s face, his touch tender, but his eyes were like flint.
“She wanted to isolate you. To scare you. To break us by making you doubt me.” He shook his head slowly. “She has no idea what she’s done. She didn’t just attack some woman my son is dating. She attacked the mother of his heir.”
The word hung in the air. Heir.
The magnate was back. But he wasn’t the man commanding lawyers from a war room anymore. He was a king who had just been given irrefutable proof of his bloodline. And of his enemies’ treason.
“What are you going to do?” Audrey asked, her heart starting to beat with a different rhythm. Not fear, but a fierce, protective thrill.
Kian bent down and picked up the results. He folded the paper neatly and slipped it into his jacket pocket, as if he were pocketing a weapon.
“For ten days, we played defense,” he said, his voice level and cold. “We waited. We reacted. We endured.”
He met her eyes, and she saw the promise of the storm to come.
“That’s over.”
He took her hand, his grip firm, unwavering. A silent pact. A declaration.
“Now,” he said, a ruthless smile touching his lips. “We hunt.”