Ethan's POV
The farmhouse was quiet in that unnatural way only old buildings manage,
as if the walls were holding their breath with me.
It was 4:27 AM.
The night felt suspended, stretched thin like a wire ready to snap.
Mike laid the signed documents on my desk without a word.
He didn't need to. I could see her handwriting from across the room.
Precise.
Neat.
Strong, the way she pretended not to break even when she did.
My chest tightened.
Not dramatically.
Not painfully.
Just enough to remind me that for all my calculations, for all my orchestrated control
Raina Mehta had the power to ruin something inside me without saying a single word.
I touched her signature with my fingertips.
My hand paused over the curve of the "R."
The ink was faintly smudged, the way paper smears when tears fall on it.
My throat locked.
"She cried while signing," Mike said quietly.
I didn't look at him.
I didn't need to.
I could feel it, that familiar tension in my ribs, the one that had haunted me since the December night I still couldn't erase.
"Where is she now?" I asked.
"Her room," Mike said. "She tried calling her father again, but the signal here is unstable. After some time, she lay on the bed. I stayed outside the door until she fell asleep."
I nodded once.
He continued gently, "She wasn't… angry, Ethan. Not in the way I expected. Just… tired."
Tired.
Yes.
That word hit deeper than it should have.
Because if anyone deserved rest, it was her.
And if anyone had denied her rest for two years,
it was me.
I turned to the screens on the wall.
One camera showed the hallway.
One the entrance.
One the fence line and the security perimeter.
And the last screen ,
Her room.
She was curled on the bed, still wearing that dress.
Her hair spread across the pillow in dark waves.
Her breath uneven from crying too hard, too long.
Her chest rose with tiny tremors.
Her fingers were curled near her face, as if her body needed to hold something even when her hands were empty.
A tear slipped down her cheek in her sleep.
Something in me cracked.
Mike didn't speak.
He never spoke when I was in this state,
the rare, impossible moment when logic collided with emotion and left a bruise.
"Ethan" he said quietly, "the papers are ready for public release. And…"
He hesitated.
"Say it," I murmured.
"…and the leak is set to drop at 10 AM on the major platforms. It's already in queue."
Six hours.
Six hours until the world saw part of her trauma,
and all of my sins.
Six hours until every newspaper in Los Angeles ran pieces about
Ethan Hale and the woman he married in the dead of night.
Six hours until Raina woke up and realized she was trapped in a future she didn't choose.
My chest tightened again,
not with pride, not with triumph.
With something darker.
Something I didn't want to name.
"Should I hold the release?" Mike asked carefully.
I wiped my thumb over her signature again.
"No," I said softly. "If we delay, they'll run it without context. And she'll suffer for it."
Mike nodded.
"Prepare her press statement," I added. "Make it clean. Make it protective. No blame. No vulnerability. Just clarity."
"And the marriage announcement?"
I exhaled, sharp, quiet.
"Yes. 9:15 AM."
Mike nodded his head. "I'll schedule it."
He turned to leave, but I stopped him.
"Wait."
He paused.
"Cancel tomorrow's security rotation," I said. "I'll watch her myself."
Mike's eyes flickered, just briefly, in understanding.
Or something close to pity.
I didn't care to decide.
He left the room.
The door clicked softly shut behind him.
I stood there for a long time, staring at her signature, then at her sleeping form on the monitor.
Her eyelashes were wet.
Her eyebrow furrowed, the way it always did when she had nightmares.
And then,
barely audible through the microphone,
She whispered my name in her sleep.
Not in fear.
Not in anger.
In exhaustion.
In resignation.
Maybe in something else entirely.
The sound hit me with more force than any threat ever had.
I pressed my palm lightly against the screen, my hand covering her small, trembling outline.
"Rai," I whispered.
"You have no idea what's coming.
And you have no idea what I'd do to keep it from touching you."
A soft chime broke the quiet,
a notification on my encrypted server.
I unlocked it.
A message blinked on the screen.
LEAK ACCELERATED.
POST TIME MOVED TO 7:00 AM.
THREE HOURS.
My breath froze.
Someone was pushing the timeline.
Someone who wanted her exposed.
Someone who wasn't me.
My pulse sharpened, cold and lethal.
"I need the car," I said into the intercom.
"Now."
The farmhouse lights flickered a second time,
the way they always did when a storm was about to hit.