Chapter 311: Will He Come After You?

Daisy came down the stairs with her laptop in both hands.

She did not run, but she also did not move like a person casually returning from her room. The screen was already glowing against her arm, and she held the device with the seriousness of someone carrying either confidential military files or the last slice of cake in the house. When she reached the living room, she went straight to Lucas and held it out.

Lucas took it from her without ceremony.

Almost immediately, the three girls closed in around him like a coordinated unit that had trained for this exact emergency.

Mia slid in on his left.

Debbie filled the space on his right.

Daisy remained so close in front that the laptop barely had room to breathe.

From where Gracie sat, the transformation was almost impressive. One moment she still had a clear view of Lucas and the flash drive in his hand. The next, her line of sight was replaced by shoulders, hair, elbows, and carefully chosen angles.

In less than three seconds, Lucas had disappeared into a wall of pretty obstruction.

Lucas, of course, noticed none of the politics. He noticed only that the laptop was open, the girls were nearby, and he now had less elbow room than before. To him, this was support. To every other functioning pair of eyes in the room, this was a soft lockdown.

Mia leaned in under the excuse of curiosity.

Debbie leaned in under the excuse of concern.

Daisy leaned in under the excuse of it being her laptop.

Together, they formed a human curtain so effective that Gracie could no longer see the screen, the flash drive, or even whether Lucas still had both hands free.

She could not see exactly what he was doing.

She could, however, see very clearly that the three of them had no intention of letting her see it.

Lucas plugged the flash drive into the laptop and began transferring the files.

Folder after folder appeared on the screen. He scrolled through names, dates, and private directories with quiet concentration, checking the structure the way a man checked weapons before deciding whether they were worth carrying. He was not performing for the room. He was measuring value.

After a while, still looking at the screen, he said:

"You should keep in touch with Durnik."

Gracie’s head lifted at once.

"Don’t let your guard down," Lucas continued, moving another set of files. "Stay close enough that he doesn’t immediately mark you as finished."

For a second, the request did not fully register.

Then it did.

"Wait." Gracie’s voice sharpened. "I thought I was done here."

The temperature in the living room dropped.

Lucas finally looked at her.

Gracie sat forward, the controlled expression she had worn since entering the mansion beginning to break. "Do you know what I had to do to get those files? Do you understand what happened in that office before I walked out with this drive?"

She shook her head hard. "I’m not sure I can go near him again."

This time the anger in her voice was not performance. It was stretched thin, the sound of a person who had already used up too much nerve in one day. What she had done was not a clean remote theft. There had been no safe distance, no protective buffer, no comfortable payment large enough to make the risk feel abstract.

"That frustrated bastard almost put his filthy hands on me today," she said. "I’m not going back there."

Silence settled over the room.

Lucas studied her for a moment. "Was it that serious?"

The question was plain. It also opened the door.

Some of the heat left Gracie’s shoulders as anger shifted into explanation. She told him how the meeting changed once Durnik thought he had her cornered. How his interest had never been only about business. How the office stopped feeling like an office. How she had to handle him directly, lock him down, and get out with the files before the situation turned into something she would not have left cleanly.

She did not dramatize it.

She did not need to.

The facts were ugly enough on their own.

And as she spoke, the mood around Lucas began to change.

The territorial coldness the three girls had carried into the room loosened in stages. Mia’s stare softened first. Debbie’s posture eased next. Daisy, still closest to the laptop, listened with a frown that no longer belonged only to suspicion.

Pity entered the space between them.

From their side, the story landed differently than it did with Lucas.

They were not listening for usefulness first. They were listening to what the day had actually cost her. In their ears, Gracie was no longer only the complicated celebrity who had walked into their house with a flash drive and too much confidence.

She was a woman who had gone into a powerful man’s office, gotten cornered, nearly been handled by him, and still forced her way out with evidence in hand.

Whatever else she was — opportunist, performer, unwanted guest — she had clearly paid a price today.

Lucas remained largely unmoved.

In his mind, useful information was still useful information. Risk came with the work. The fact that Gracie had survived the encounter and returned with files already put her ahead of most people who only cursed Durnik from a safe distance.

The girls did not receive it that cleanly.

They were no longer looking at her like an invader alone.

They were looking at her like someone who had been through it.

Debbie felt it more than the others.

As Gracie described the office, the change in Durnik’s tone, and the moment it became obvious the man only wanted to have sex with her, something old rose in Debbie’s chest.

She remembered her former boss.

He had nearly done the same thing to her.

Her fingers curled slightly against her skirt.

The cold look she had been giving Gracie faded. What replaced it was quieter and heavier.

Gracie noticed the room changing and kept her voice steady.

She was angry, yes. But she was also careful. She had seen what Lucas could do when he decided someone needed handling. She had walked herself into this mess with Durnik, and she had already paid enough for it. She did not want to become the next problem on his list.

She wanted distance from Durnik.

Not a different kind of trouble.

When she finished, the room stayed quiet for a moment.

Then Daisy asked:

"Are you sure Durnik won’t come after you later for what you did to him?"

No hostility. Just a real question.

Because men like Durnik did not take humiliation quietly.

Getting the files was only the first half.

Surviving his reaction might be the second.