Jocelyn’s POV
I'm alone in Conference Room B, reviewing budget revisions on my laptop, when the door closes behind me.
Not softly—deliberately. I spin around and see Aiden standing there, hand still on the door handle, that practiced smile on his face.
"Sorry, didn't mean to startle you," he says, not sounding sorry at all.
My heart kicks into overdrive. "How did you get in here?"
"Walked through the lobby. Your new security protocols are impressive, but Patricia was dealing with three reporters simultaneously. I just slipped past." He moves into the room, putting himself between me and the exit. "We need to talk."
"We have nothing to talk about." I'm already reaching for my phone. "And you're violating the visitor policy."
"I'll make this quick." He sits in the chair across from mine—casual, relaxed, like this is a scheduled meeting. "I've been watching the media coverage. The donor responses. The way everything's unraveling."
"Nothing's unraveling."
"Jocelyn." His voice drops, becomes almost gentle. "Morrison Trust is pulling funding. Silverstein's about to follow. Half your staff is questioning whether they're working for an organization with ethical leadership. That's not stability. That's collapse in slow motion."
"We'll handle it."
"Will you?" He leans forward, elbows on knees. "Because from where I'm sitting, Zayden's losing control. The Vivienne situation spiraling, donors fleeing, reporters camping outside your door. And he's so focused on fighting old battles that he's not seeing the new threats."
"What new threats?"
"Me, for one." He says it plainly, without malice. Just a fact. "I could help you. Legitimately. But Zayden's pride won't let him accept it, and you're too loyal to go around him."
My hands are shaking. I press them flat against the table. "This conversation is over. You need to leave."
"In a minute." He glances at my laptop, at the budget spreadsheet still open. "Medical Family Support Initiative. Ambitious. Expensive. Heavily dependent on Morrison's funding, which you're about to lose."
"How do you know the details of our funding structure?"
"I pay attention." His smile widens slightly. "I also pay attention to other things. Like how you've been avoiding coffee. How you left the staff meeting halfway through looking pale. How Zayden's been even more protective than usual."
Ice floods my veins. He's building to something, and I know exactly what.
"Those are just observations," I say, voice steady despite the panic. "They don't mean anything."
"They mean everything when you combine them with medical scheduling data."
He pulls out his phone, scrolls through something I can't see.
"Prenatal appointments. First trimester bloodwork. Eight-week ultrasound scheduled for…" he checks the time, "two hours from now, actually. Congratulations on the pregnancy, by the way."
The word hangs in the air like a threat: pregnancy.
He said it. Explicitly. Confirming he's breached medical privacy, accessed protected information, violated federal law.
"You hacked my medical records," I say, voice low and dangerous.
"I accessed publicly available scheduling systems that happen to be poorly secured." He shrugs. "Not my fault healthcare data protection is inadequate."
"That's a felony."
"Prove it." He leans back, completely unbothered. "Prove I accessed anything I shouldn't have. Prove it wasn't lucky guessing based on observable symptoms. Prove I'm not just a concerned family member noticing his sister-in-law looks unwell."
The calculated cruelty of it steals my breath. He's not just threatening—he's showing me how untouchable he thinks he is.
"Why are you doing this?" I ask.
"I told you. I'm trying to help."
He stands, moves closer to the window overlooking the street where camera crews are still stationed.
"Zayden's about to implode spectacularly. The foundation will get caught in the blast radius. And you—pregnant, stressed, trying to hold everything together—you'll be collateral damage."
"Unless I accept your help."
"Unless you accept reality." He turns back to me. "I'm not the villain here, Jocelyn. I'm the lifeboat you're too proud to climb into before the ship sinks."
"The ship isn't sinking."
"Not yet. But pregnancy is stressful under the best circumstances."
He moves toward the door, hand on the handle.
"Adding media scandals, donor crises, and a husband who's more focused on his reputation than your health? That's dangerous levels of cortisol for a developing fetus. You should be careful."
The mention of stress hormones, pregnancy complications—it's surgical. Designed to hit exactly where I'm most vulnerable.
"Get out," I whisper.
"I'm leaving, but think about what I said." He opens the door, pauses. "Zayden's losing control. You can see it. The staff can see it. Soon the whole world will see it. And when he falls, you don't have to fall with him."
The door closes, and I'm alone in the conference room, shaking so hard I have to grip the table edge.
He said pregnancy. Out loud. Explicitly.
My hands won't stop shaking. I press them flat on the conference table but the tremor moves into my arms, my chest, settling somewhere behind my ribs where the fear lives.
My phone is in my hand before I consciously decide to grab it. I open the documentation file I've been maintaining—the spreadsheet tracking every Aiden encounter.
New entry:
April 4, 2:17 PM - Conference Room B
Aiden entered closed conference room, cornered me without witnesses. Explicitly mentioned "pregnancy" and referenced specific medical appointments including ultrasound timing.
Confirmed unauthorized access to protected scheduling systems. Claimed information was "publicly available" despite HIPAA protections.
Key quotes: "Prenatal appointments. First trimester bloodwork. Eight-week ultrasound." Referenced "cortisol" and "developing fetus" in threatening context.
Assessment: Strategic escalation. Using pregnancy as leverage. Demonstrating ability to breach privacy while maintaining plausible deniability. Creating psychological pressure through implied threats to fetal health.
Witness: None
Duration: ~8 minutes
I save the document, then text David: ‘Need security footage Conference Room B, 2:10-2:20 PM today. Priority.’
His response: ‘On it. Everything okay?’
‘No. Will explain later.’
I'm still documenting when the door opens.
Zayden walks in carrying a stack of quarterly reports, already mid-sentence about the Morrison funding numbers—then stops. Reads my face the way he always does, like a headline that tells him everything before the article starts.
"Aiden was here." My voice comes out steadier than I feel. "Cornered me. He knows about the pregnancy, Zay. Said the word out loud, referenced the ultrasound timing."
His expression shifts from concern to something darker, jaw clenching tight. He's scanning me like I might be physically hurt. "Are you okay?"
"He didn't touch me, just talked." I show him my phone, the documentation entry. "But he confirmed he's accessing my medical records."
Zayden reads the entry, jaw clenching tighter with each line. "I'm calling our lawyer. Criminal complaint for HIPAA violation, harassment, stalking. I want restraining orders, criminal charges, everything."
"He'll say he guessed. That symptoms were obvious."
"Let him try." Zayden pulls out his phone. "We have documentation now. Pattern of behavior. Specific knowledge he couldn't have without illegal access."
David appears in the doorway. "Got the footage. Aiden entered through the side entrance at 2:12 PM. Walked right past the lobby while Patricia was on the phone. No one stopped him."
"Send it to our lawyer," Zayden says. "Everything."
After David leaves, I sink back into my chair. The weight of everything crashes over me—Aiden's escalation, Vivienne's campaign, the donors fleeing, the baby growing inside me.
"He's winning," I whisper.
"He's escalating. That's different." Zayden kneels beside me. "Escalation means he's desperate. Means our security protocols are working enough that he has to take bigger risks."
"Or he's confident enough to be blatant."
"Either way, we're documenting everything. Building a case." He checks his watch. "We have the ultrasound in ninety minutes. Want to leave early? Avoid the reporters?"
I nod, too exhausted to argue.
We pack up my laptop, my files, the documentation that's becoming evidence.
Strategic escalation, I called it in my notes.
But it feels like war. And I'm carrying a child into the middle of it.