I turn around slowly, placing my phone on the folder I grabbed and fully face the woman who has brought so much anger and pain into my life in a matter of months. Never have I been so fucking furious at one person, never have I wanted to end another person's life so completely. And there she stands in a dress and heels with her hair done up while she points a gun at me. Strangely, the gun is the last thing I'm worried about at the moment. I've spent years being trained in self-defense and I know I could have her on the floor before she took a single shot. Under different circumstances, I wouldn't hesitate, but now I worry about what happens if by some chance she's faster than I am. What will that do to Anastasia? It would destroy her and if it destroys her, it destroys our baby; I have to play this carefully because I have to go home to her tonight.

"That's what you wanted, isn't it?" I ask, my fingertips resting lightly on the desk over my cell phone. "You wanted my attention so now you have it. What else do you want?"

The fucking bitch just smirks at me, taking a few steps towards me, the gun never wavering. "Oh, Mr. Grey, we're long past that now, don't you think?" she asks in what I'm sure she believes is a sultry voice. To me, it's like nails on a fucking chalkboard. "First things first: I'll take your phone."

I keep my own smirk to myself, not hesitating to grab and toss my phone onto a nearby chair between us. "All yours, Miss Fuller," I say evenly.

Just as I'd hoped, she picks it up one-handed and removes the battery tossing it on the floor while the rest of the phone flies towards the couch.

"How'd you get in here?" I ask when she turns her attention back to me. Right now, all I need to do is play for time. "I'm fairly certain your security clearance was revoked when your employment was terminated."

"Oh it was," she says, taking another step forward. If she comes any closer, my only choice is to attempt to fight her which would end with only one of us walking away. And I have a fucking lot of motivation to ensure that person is me. "But I still have friends here at GEH and I called in a few favors..."

I nod slowly, trying to discern her current mental state. I've spent enough time with therapists throughout my life that I've become familiar with identifying how others will behave by the way they hold themselves or how often they blink. From what I'm seeing in front of me, Sarah is the picture of mental soundness which makes her even more dangerous than she would be if she was ranting and raving like a madwoman. "And to whom did you call in these favors?" I ask as though we're discussing some business deal.

Sarah's smile only widens. "Oh, I don't think that's pertinent to our discussion," she says dismissively, waving the gun a little. I manage to hide my wince.

"And what discussion is that, Miss Fuller?"

"The one I tried to have three years ago with you in your hotel room in Miami," she says, biting her lip. Faintly, I register that lip biting is only sexy when Ana is the one doing the biting—whether her lip or mine. Sarah's lips dart below my belt and I fight to control my reaction to thinking about Ana; the last thing I need is Sarah thinking she's turning me on. "I'm sure you remember the one to which I refer..."

"Hard to forget," I reply honestly. Walking into my hotel room after a business dinner to find a woman in my bed wearing only the suit jacket and tie I'd worn to lunch that day isn't something that tends to leaves a man's memory anytime soon. And I'm sure she clearly recalls the fury on my face and the immediate demands that she get the fuck out of room, pack her shit, and to fucking leave Miami to clear out her desk at Grey House. By the time I returned to Seattle, she was long gone. "I don't particularly remember any sort of conversation, though."

"Well, if you'd given me a moment," she says, smiling as though we're reliving a fond memory. "Christian," I physically flinch at the way she says my name; she ignores it, "I don't think you realize what you had right in front of you. If you'd just given me the chance, I would have done anything for you. An-y-thing." She pronounces each syllable separately, her tongue poking out between her lips as she smiles. "After I left, I realized you just weren't ready for me yet. So I decided to wait. And I did wait, Christian, all this time, just for you." It's not difficult to discern her meaning; she wants me to know she hasn't fucked anyone in three years because she was waiting for me. "I waited until I knew you wanted more from a relationship than just tying a girl up and fucking her senseless." Her voice has a breathless quality to it.

My heart stops beating momentarily as I realize she knows more about my life than she should. "Excuse me?" I say coldly.

She smiles consolingly. "It's okay, Christian," she assures me. "I don't mind. Hell, if you wanted to do that with me, I'd be ready and willing. You wouldn't have to give up anything for me, not like you did with your little Anastasia."

My temper shoots straight through the roof at her mention of Ana. "Is that why you shot her?" I ask, my voice shaking in fury. "Because you thought she'd made me give something up for her?"

"Well, that and I just needed her out of the way," Sarah replies dismissively.

I start to take a step towards her—fuck security protocol—when I see movement out of the corner of my eyes. Managing to remain in place, my eyes drift slightly over Sarah's shoulder as Taylor and two GEH security guards enter the hall through the fire stairwell. "Needed her out of the way?" I ask quietly, carefully looking back at her. Thankfully, she's focused completely on me and unaware of the activity outside the office. I need to keep it that way. "Why's that?"

"Because she is all wrong for you, Christian." Sarah flashes me a smile, one that I know I've seen before.

And then it hits me as I see Taylor and the other two men drawing their weapons as they peer into my office window, sizing up the situation. She sounds just like Elena. All the times Elena tried to convince me that Ana is wrong for me and that I needed something more than what she could give me. After all these years, I start to see what her game was: She wasn't looking out for my wellbeing or suiting my needs; she wanted me under her thumb, to control me like I was still her submissive, to keep me in her life. For what? What was the motivation?

"She loved you, Christian."

One of the conversations Ana and I have had on the subject suddenly pops into my mind. It was during one of the evenings at some point in the last year when she and I had beer and pizza at her place, after watching a couple of movies. She was on one side of the couch, knees pulled to her chest while sat on the other, one knee on the cushion, the other on the floor. We'd had just enough beer that I didn't automatically snap at her when Elena's name popped up out of nowhere and for once, I just let her have her say. Mostly because I enjoy listening to her talk.

"She probably still loves you. That's why she's always calling and trying to set you up with..." She'd averted her eyes from me and I can still feel the heat from her blush. "With submissives. It's why she can't stand me, because I'm so opposite anything else you've had in your life."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I'd asked curiously.

She shrugged. "You've said it yourself. I was your first vanilla conquest. Anyone else who asked you for more, you cut them off completely and without hesitation. You and I at least tried. You took me gliding..." The smile on her face as she remembered that day in Georgia nearly had me launching myself at her. "What was her response to finding out about me, Christian?" She wanted me to answer, but I had refused, not wanting to relive the worst morning of my life. "It wasn't 'keep doing what you're doing and see how it works out'; it was 'show her what it's really like'. She wanted you to go full steam into something even when you'd made the decision to start slowly. Maybe she wanted us to fail because then she'd know she still had control over you. She could see there was a possibility you could be happy with someone else in some other life and she wanted to prevent that at all costs."

And now I have Sarah standing in front of me acting exactly the way Elena did. Given more time, would Elena have gone to these lengths to get Ana out of my life? Would she have shot Ana? Would she have murdered Leila?

Speaking of...

"So can you explain to me Leila's role in all of this?" I ask, leaning back on my desk again. She's so focused on my face that she doesn't notice my finger hit the button on my desk phone that connects to Andrea's intercom.

Sarah smirked. "Leila..." she says with a laugh, shaking her head. "Oh, she had it bad for you, Christian. She and I had some long chats about you and your little Anastasia. She was already planning to pay her a visit, you know; she gave me the idea. And I figured if you thought it was Leila who went after her, you might be more welcoming when I popped by to give my sympathies for her loss. I really didn't expect you to show up at the apartment that soon..."

I can't remember another time when I have been so far beyond anger and fury and all those normal emotions, when I could see nothing but red in front of me. There has never been another moment that I've been so capable of ending another person's life without any regard for the consequences. Vaguely, I see Taylor standing straighter, raising his gun, clearly seeing the signs that I'm about to completely fucking lose it. One of the security guards reaches behind Andrea's desk and presses a button that silently unlocks my office door and I reach back, my finger hovering over a button beside the desk phone that will open my door.

"Sarah, I assure you that if you'd shown up to give your sympathies, I would have had you thrown out on your ass faster than I did in Miami."

Her jaw drops as though she can't believe what I just said. As though she truly believed that by coming here tonight and pointing a gun at me she would convince me that she and I belong together. In the next few seconds a dozen things happen. My office door flies open hard enough to crack the glass window it bounces against. Sarah's eyes widen and her arm rises. Taylor is shouting for her to drop the gun. I stand up straight, not taking my eyes off of her as she makes a decision, and I see the exact moment that decision is made. Before anybody can stop her, she pulls the trigger and I close my eyes, silently apologizing to Ana for everything, hoping she'll forgive me as the pain shoots through my shoulder.

"Mr. Grey!" Taylor shouts a moment later following several thuds. "Christian! Talk to me!"

My eyes open and my hand flies to my shoulder. When I pull it away, it's covered in blood, but not nearly as much as I expected. "I'm fine," I grunt, climbing to my feet. "It barely grazed me." I look behind me and find the bullet lodged in the glass window behind my desk. I'm suddenly reminded of when Taylor insisted on installing bulletproof glass throughout the GEH building. I thought it was a bit much but as it turns out, it has its uses.

Taylor removes my suit jacket and shirt, tossing it on the floor somewhere so he can look at my shoulder.

"Like I said," I say when we both see the injury, "it barely grazed me. I've had worse." He gives me a look that's almost begging me not to expand on what I mean by that.

"You'll need stitches," Taylor tells me gravely. We both look up as three more security guards arrive. Sarah is on the floor of my office, her hands secured with cable ties. "The police are on their way. We have enough on her that we'll never see her again."

"I should have fucking killed her," I growl quietly. "For what she did to Ana, I should have fucking killed her."

"I know the feeling, sir," Taylor says quietly. "Believe me, I do. Under different circumstances, I'd be right there to help you dispose of the body. But think about the repercussions, sir. You're getting married in a week; you're going to be a father in a few months. Dealing with all the bullshit that goes along with this, you wouldn't get time to enjoy any of that between court appearances and meetings with lawyers... On this one occasion, this is exactly how you should handle things. Let the police take care of it. We've got her, sir; it's over. Let it go."

I swallow hard, knowing he's right, but wanting to do more. The choice is taken from me when the police arrive followed closely by EMTs. I decline being taken to the hospital and they quickly access the extent of my injury, agreeing to stitch it up here in my office. Following that, I have to give a statement to the police and they warn me there will be follow-up meetings. I give them my business card and they go on their way.

"Shall we try again, Mr. Grey?" Taylor asks, deadpan, nearly two hours later.

I don't bother grabbing my suit jacket or shirt, instead grabbing a spare shirt I keep in the office and gather my cell phone and battery. "Yes, let's get the fuck out of here," I mutter, turning the phone back on. I wince at the dozen text messages, missed calls, and voicemails from Ana and my parents, all asking in worried voices where I am. "Does my family know about this?"

"No, sir," Taylor says. "I didn't really know what to tell them."

I nod. "Remind me to give Barney a raise for that battery removal alert thing he set up for us," I say. The moment Sarah removed the battery from my cell phone, Taylor was notified, and since I never remove the battery from my phone, he knew there was trouble.

"Yes, sir."

I had hoped to be able to sneak into my parents' house, tiptoe up to my bedroom, and climb into bed beside Ana, putting off all questions and interrogations until morning. Given the number of messages waiting for me on my phone when I turned it on, I should have known better, but I still held out hope. All the lights in the front of the house are turned on and I can see nervous pacing back and forth behind the curtains.

"We'll debrief in the morning," I tell Taylor. He's already looking longingly towards the guesthouse where my security team is setup for however long Ana and I are in Bellevue.

As I approach my parents' front door, I slow down knowing my parents and Ana will not let me get away with telling them nothing is the matter and I'm just a little late getting home. It would be different if I'd answered their calls earlier, but since it's unheard of that I don't, I know I'm in for an even longer night. Well, early morning as it's approaching three in the morning. I sigh, turning the doorknob and stepping inside, locating my family in the sitting room talking quietly and looking worried, Ana particularly. For a second, I take advantage of the fact that they didn't hear me come in so I can just watch her. She's curled up in a chair, wrapped in a blanket while she stares unseeing into the fireplace.

My father is the first to realize I'm here. He jumps to his feet, startling Ana and my mother, and stares at me in disbelief. "Where the hell have you been?" he demands.

I almost smirk, reminded of my teenage years when I used to sneak out of the house to get drunk. In the beginning, I got caught more often than not, but eventually I got the hang of getting inside undetected. "Sorry," I say, trying for contrition. "I got a little held up at work." Technically it's the truth...

"Are you okay?" my mother asks, rushing towards me for a hug. I manage to hide my wince when she places her hand on my shoulder. "All our calls went straight to voicemail."

I sigh, my eyes darting towards Ana who is just staring at me in shock, much like she did when I walked into my penthouse after the Charlie Tango debacle. "I know, I'm sorry. The battery died and I didn't realize."

Carrick is eyeing me a little too skeptically. He never misses a fucking thing. "You want to tell us what happened?" he asks evenly, and now I'm really feeling like a teenager again. I half expect him to order me to his study so he can lecture me on his territory.

"Yes," I answer honestly. "But it's a long story and frankly, I'm fucking exhausted. Can this wait until morning?"

Carrick narrows his eyes, but nods. "In the morning, then," he repeats grudgingly, glancing over at Ana before taking a step closer to me and lowering his voice. "She's been out of her mind with worry for hours. Get her to bed."

I nod. "Thank you," I say, grateful that he's dropping the subject for the moment. "Mom, I'm sorry I worried you."

Grace nods. "As long as you're okay," she says quietly, leaning up to kiss my cheek. "Good night, son."

A few minutes later, I'm left alone with Ana who hasn't said a word or moved an inch since she first laid eyes on me. Sighing, I go to her, kneeling down in front of her and taking her hands. "Hi," I whisper.

"Hi," she mouths back.

"I take it you were worried about me?"

This snaps her out of her shocked daze. "What the hell do you think?" she asks harshly.

I sigh, hanging my head. "I'm sorry, Ana," I say quietly. "Honestly, I meant to be home hours ago."

"So why weren't you?" she asks. "And don't give me the same bullshit you gave your parents."

"Wouldn't dream of it," I reply flatly. "Come on, let's go upstairs and get comfortable, and I'll tell you what happened."

To my surprise, she agrees without argument and takes my hand to get to her feet. Neither of us speaks again until we're in my bedroom. Ana waits patiently on the bed while I get changed, gasping when I pull my shirt off without thinking. The bandage covering the bullet graze is soaked in blood and I silently curse for not taking care of it before getting undressed in front of her. "Christian," Ana breathes, standing and coming to stand in front of me, eyeing the bandage in concern. "What happened?"

I sigh. I could tell her anything right now to set her mind at ease until tomorrow when I promised to bring my parents up to speed about my lateness tonight. But naturally putting off or deflecting the question will only serve to piss her off and I'm not really in the mood for that. "Taylor and I were prepared to leave Grey House right around midnight," I say quietly, taking her hand and leading her back to the bed. "We made it as far as the parking garage when I realized I left my phone in my office, so I went back up for it while Taylor pulled the car around. In the time between leaving my office and returning, someone got into the office. I'm still working on the how's and why's, but it happened."

"Who was it?" Ana whispers anxiously, her eyes wide.

Running my hands through my hair, I know there is no way to sugarcoat this for her. "Sarah Fuller," I answer reluctantly.

Her hands fly to her mouth in shock.

"She had a gun and was blocking the door. I considered trying to disarm her myself, but aside from not knowing how volatile she was, I wasn't sure I could simply stop at disarming her. The second I realized she was there, I wanted to fucking kill her for what she did to you." I shake my head, trying to get the conversation back on track. "Anyway, she took my cell phone and removed the battery, presumably so I couldn't send anyone a message. What she didn't know was that a years back, my IT guy Barney installed some app or microchip in the phone that alerts my security detail—namely Taylor—that it was removed. At the most, I'll switch my phone off if I need to, but I never have cause to remove the battery. The whole thing lasted twenty minutes at most; I had to distract her just long enough for Taylor and Grey House security to show up and get things under their control. Unfortunately, when they were apprehending her, she pulled the trigger—I don't know if it was intentional or not. The bullet only grazed my shoulder, Ana; it's just a scratch."

At some point while I was speaking, Ana peeled off the bandage. "Just a scratch?" she asks dubiously. "Since when do scratches need stitches?"

I shrug dismissively. "It's a deep scratch." Clearly she isn't seeing the humor I'm trying to inject. I wonder vaguely if she's having flashbacks to her own meeting with Sarah. She looks moments away from tears. I turn towards her, tipping her chin up so she'll look at me. "Ana, really, I'm okay. It doesn't even hurt."

She nods jerkily, climbing into my lap and wrapping her arms around my neck. "We didn't know what to think," she whispers into my uninjured shoulder. "I was waiting up for you and ended up in the kitchen. Your mom found me and we talked for a while, then we realized you still weren't home. She woke Carrick, he even called the police, but they told us there was nothing they could do because it hadn't been twenty-four hours. You didn't answer any of our calls or text messages and we knew something was wrong; it was Charlie Tango all over again..."

"I know, baby," I whisper into her hair. "Between getting my shoulder stitched up and giving my statement to the police half a dozen times, I didn't think to call. Honestly, I was hoping you'd be asleep when I got home."

"How did you distract her?"

We're curled up together in bed, though neither of us is particularly tired anymore. "I got her talking," I admit quietly. "About why she was doing all of this, why she went after you, how she knew things about me she never should have known. God, Ana, the way she was talking, she sounded exactly like Elena."

"What do you mean?"

"Just the way she spoke about you and me and how wrong you are for me," I elaborate. "I don't understand why people can't just let me make my own decisions rather than trying to dictate my life."

She pushes herself up on an elbow and raises an eyebrow at me. It takes me a second to realize what put that expression in her eyes, and I grin. In the very beginning of our relationship, all I wanted was to dictate every second of her life. "You do seem to attract the more mentally unstable women, don't you?" she asks.

I smirk at her, reaching up to pull her closer to me. "And what does that say about you, Miss Steele?" I ask huskily, her lips a millimeter from mine.

"Well, I've agreed to marry you and I'm carrying your child, so I think that says I'm the most mentally unstable of the bunch. And it says more about you than it does me that you seem to enjoy that instability."

"I happen to love it, actually. It makes me ridiculously happy that you're just unstable enough to put up with me and my bullshit."

She hums against my lips. "I'm ridiculously happy, too." We kiss far too briefly when she pulls away to meet my eyes again. "So this whole thing with Sarah... it's over?" she asks tentatively.

I nod, my hand cupping the back of her neck, my thumb stroking a spot just behind one of her ears. "I'm cautiously optimistic that it's over," I confirm. "We don't have enough information to say for sure yet, but I think this is the end."

"It's good timing," she says, smiling. "Now we can get married and start our life together without all that hanging over our heads."

"Very true, Miss Steele," I murmur, rolling her onto her back and hovering over her, ignoring the pain in my shoulder. "And now we're done with the talking. It's been a very long, trying day and I want you."

She bites her lip for a second against a grin. "Well, Mr. Grey, I think we can find some way to accommodate your desires."

A/N: One more chapter after this and then the epilogue which I have started three times and all of which are completely different because I can't decide which one doesn't suck. I'm thinking the third one, but who knows. I'll probably wait until sometime next week to update again since we'll all be busy reading other things this weekend, but in the meantime, please review!