Chapter 9: The Vault event
The month that passed was a study in sterile precision. Communication existed as emails with bullet points and attached PDFs. The upcoming launch party for a new cognac brand was smaller than Bellecourt, less glamorous, more industry-heavy. The walkthrough had been a masterclass in icy professionalism. Darius, in a black hoodie and jeans, had pointed out fire exits and load-bearing capacities. Nya, in tailored slacks and a blouse, had taken notes on her tablet. They’d been surrounded by staff, yet entirely alone in a bubble of stifling courtesy. “The electrical here can’t support your extra warmers.” “Noted. I’ll adjust the catering layout.” Not a single personal word. Not a ‘Mama’. Not a ‘Daddy’. Just two efficient ghosts haunting the same space.
The only warmth came from Mom-Dukes. Her weekly calls were a lifeline Nya clung to, though they were fraught with their own kind of tension.
“He’s moping, child,” Mom-Dukes said over the phone just three days before the event. Nya could hear the clatter of dishes in the background. “Walking around that big empty penthouse like a thundercloud. Won’t talk about it. Just grunts.”
“We’re working together, that’s all,” Nya replied, stirring a cup of ginger tea. The ginger had become a recent, constant necessity. The nausea had started subtly—a rolling in her stomach mid-morning, a sudden aversion to the smell of coffee—and had settled into a persistent, low-grade queasiness. She blamed the aftermath of the Bellecourt emotional crash, the stress of the silent treatment, the relentless pressure of curating a perfect online life. It was just stress. It had to be.
“Working together,” Mom-Dukes scoffed. “Two planets orbiting the same sun and pretending they’re in different galaxies. It’s exhausting to watch. When you gonna stop punishing him?”
“I’m not punishing him. We’re just… being professional.”
“Mmhmm. And how’s your stomach? You still sipping that ginger slop?”
Nya’s hand paused on the mug. “It’s fine. Just a bug, probably.”
“A month-long bug? Babies ain’t bugs, sweetheart.”
The world tilted. Nya forced a laugh, too sharp. “Don’t start, Ms. Blackwood. Seriously.”
“I’m just saying. A woman knows her own body. When was your last period?”
The question landed like a physical blow. Nya’s mind went blank, then scrambled, flipping through a mental calendar cluttered with deadlines and content schedules. The weeks bled together. Bellecourt was a month ago. The tension before that… She couldn’t pin it down. A cold thread of pure fear slithered down her spine.
“I’m on the pill,” she said, her voice hollow. It was a weak defense, and they both knew it.
“Pills fail. Stress fails. Life happens.” Mom-Dukes’s tone softened, lost its meddling edge, became maternal and grave. “You need to know. For certain. Before you see him again.”
The call ended with Nya’s heart hammering. She pushed the thought away. It was impossible. The timing was wrong. The everything was wrong. It was stress.
The night of the cognac launch, she armored herself in a dress of emerald green satin that clung to every curve, a statement of defiant vitality. Her makeup was flawless, her curls cascading down her back. She looked like a jewel. Inside, she felt fragile, a porcelain shell over a churning sea.
The club, ‘Odyssey,’ was one of Darius’s smaller, more intimate venues. Dark wood, deep booths, low lighting. The air was rich with the scent of leather, tobacco, and the sharp, oaky aroma of the cognac being showcased.
She moved through the initial crowd, a vision of hostess perfection. Her smile ached. Her stomach rolled. She accepted a glass of champagne from a passing tray—a prop, part of the image. She brought it to her lips for a photo op with the brand ambassador.
The smell hit her first. The sharp, yeasty effervescence, usually innocuous, now smelled violently alcoholic, cloying, rotten. It tunneled up her nose and directly into the base of her skull. Her saliva glands erupted. A cold sweat bloomed instantly on her brow and the back of her neck.
“Excuse me,” she murmured to the ambassador, her smile still miraculously in place. She set the untouched glass on a high table, her fingers trembling.
She walked, not too fast, toward the hall leading to the restrooms. The corridor seemed to stretch, the patterned floor tilting. The thumping bass from the main room felt like it was pounding inside her skull. She pushed into the blessedly cool, quiet, and empty bathroom. Marble, soft lighting, the faint scent of jasmine from a diffuser.
She barely made it to the first stall. The lock clicked shut a second before she fell to her knees on the cool tile. The heave was violent, unforgiving. It ripped through her, a raw, gut-deep convulsion that had nothing to do with the single sip she hadn’t taken. She clung to the porcelain bowl, her perfect curls dangling perilously close as her body betrayed her with a brutal, wrenching urgency.
It was more than food or drink. It was the purge of a month of silence, of professional ice, of unsaid words and terrifying possibilities. It was the expulsion of the scent of champagne that now smelled like dread.
When it finally subsided, leaving her trembling and hollow, she stayed on her knees, forehead pressed against the cool stall divider. Spit hung from her lips. The taste in her mouth was acrid, final. The pristine emerald satin of her dress felt like a grotesque parody.
A soft, hesitant knock on the stall door.
“Nya?” It was Chloe’s voice, worried. “You okay in there? You vanished.”
Nya took a ragged breath. She used a wad of toilet paper to wipe her mouth, then flushed. She stood on shaky legs, smoothing the dress, running trembling hands over her hair. She opened the stall door.
Chloe took in her pallor, the sheen of sweat, the over-bright eyes. “Oh, honey.”
“I’m fine,” Nya whispered, the lie automatic. She moved to the sink, splashing cold water on her face, avoiding her own reflection. “Just… the champagne smelled off. Must be a stomach flu.”
Chloe didn’t buy it. She handed her a paper towel. “You need to go home. I can handle the wrap-up.”
“No.” The word was sharp. Nya met Chloe’s eyes in the mirror now. The fear was still there, but it was hardening into a desperate resolve. “No. I’m finishing this. I just need a minute.”
She reapplied her lipstick with a steady hand she didn’t feel. She squared her shoulders. The woman in the mirror was flawless again, a mask of gleaming emerald and caramel composure. The woman inside was calculating dates, her mind screaming with a single, inescapable echo.
Babies ain’t bugs, sweetheart.
She had to know. She would know. But not tonight. Tonight, she had a performance to finish. She walked out of the bathroom, back into the cognac-scented haze, her smile a weapon, her stomach a silent, churning vault of a secret she wasn’t ready to name.
The hum of conversation and clinking glasses washed over her as she re-entered the main room. She moved on autopilot, a pre-programmed doll of gracious hosting. Her body felt both weightless and leaden, a dissonance she forced into a smooth glide. She complimented a distributor on his tie. She laughed at a buyer's joke, the sound like crystal ringing in her own ears. Every sense was hyper-alert, tuned to the looming presence she felt watching from the shadows near the service bar.
Darius stood there, one hand in his pocket, the other holding a glass of dark liquor he wasn’t drinking. His eyes tracked her. They missed nothing. Not the extra beat of hesitation before her laugh, not the subtle, careful way she now breathed through her mouth near the tasting stations, not the almost imperceptible pallor beneath her expertly applied blush. She was performing flawlessly, but it was a different kind of flawless. It was brittle, a high-wire act performed over a void he could sense but not see.
He pushed off the bar and cut through the crowd, intercepting her as she finished speaking with the event photographer. “A word, Mama.”
The old name, deployed here, now, was a tactical strike. It momentarily shattered her composure. Her light brown eyes flicked to his, wide and startled, before the mask slammed back down. “Darius. Is there an issue with the projections?”
“Not with the projections.” He stepped closer, forcing her to tilt her head up. He studied her face, his gaze dropping to the faint sheen still lingering at her hairline. “You’re white as these napkins. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. It’s warm in here.” She fanned herself lightly with a hand, a gesture that felt antique and false. “Maybe they overdid it with the heating.”
“You were in the bathroom for ten minutes.” His voice was low, a rumble meant only for her. “And you’ve been avoiding the product all night. You haven’t touched a drop.”
“I’m the host. I need a clear head.” She offered a tight smile. “Professionalism, remember? You praised it.”
He ignored the barb. His eyes narrowed, searching. “Are you sick?”
“I’m fine.” The words were too quick, too sharp. She softened them with another smile, turning to look at the crowd as if surveying her kingdom. “See? Everything’s perfect.”
But it wasn’t. He saw the slight tremor in the hand holding her clutch. He saw the way her knuckles were blanched from gripping it too tightly. He saw the frantic, trapped-animal look in her eyes that she thought she’d hidden. This wasn’t the cold, controlled woman from the walkthrough. This was something else. Something frayed and frightened.
“You’re lying,” he stated, his voice flat. Not an accusation, just a fact laid bare between them.
Her composure cracked for a second. Her jaw tightened. She looked at him, and for a fleeting instant, he saw it all—the fear, the exhaustion, the sheer, untethered panic. It was gone in a blink, replaced by icy resolve. “My well-being isn’t part of our contract, Darius. Excuse me.”
She moved past him, her satin dress whispering a warning. He let her go, but his eyes stayed on her, tracking the deliberate, graceful arc she made through the room. She was magnificent. And she was completely, utterly lying to him.
The rest of the event passed in a blur of congratulatory handshakes and posed photos. Nya’s cheeks ached. Her stomach was a tight, hard knot. When the final guest was ushered out, she didn’t wait for the debrief. She collected her coat from the cloakroom, her movements efficient and swift.
“I’ll email the recap and final numbers tomorrow,” she said to Chloe, who was watching her with naked concern.
“Nya, let me drive you.”
“I’m fine. Really.” She couldn’t bear the pity, the questions. She needed the sterile silence of her own car, the aloneness to finally think, to crumble.
She was almost to the service exit when his voice stopped her, echoing in the now-quiet hall. “Mama.”
She didn’t turn. She couldn’t. She simply stopped, her back to him, a silhouette in emerald against the dark wood.
He didn’t approach. He kept the distance, a canyon of unsaid things between them. “Whatever it is,” he said, his deep voice softer now, stripped of its earlier edge. “You don’t have to handle it alone.”
The kindness in his words was worse than his anger. It threatened to unravel her completely. She gave a single, slight nod, a gesture he might not have even seen. Then she pushed the door open and stepped out into the cold, biting night air.
She took a deep, ragged gulp of it, leaning against the brick wall of the alley. Inside, Darius stood in the empty, scent-heavy club, staring at the door that had closed behind her. The flawless event was a success. The metrics would be outstanding. But a cold, unfamiliar dread settled in his gut. She was hiding something. Something big. And for the first time, his dominance, his control, felt useless. He was locked out. The door, for all his power, was firmly shut.