Chapter 5 - Whispers in the Dark
The SUV slammed through the decorative iron boundary fence, wood and steel splintering with a deafening crash.
Headlights violently swept across the drenched forest floor, but the figure was gone. Only crushed ferns and muddy tire tracks disappearing into an unmonitored access road remained.
"Dammit!" Dominic snarled, slamming his fist onto the steering wheel.
He braked hard, the vehicle skidding to a halt amidst the swirling fog and exhaust. He threw the transmission into park, his breathing heavy, his knuckles white against the leather wheel. He turned his head slowly, fixing me with a glare that felt like a trial and execution rolled into one.
"You knew him," Dominic said. It wasn't a question.
"I thought he was dead," I whispered, the cold reality settling deep into my bones. "I swear to you, Dominic, I thought he died eight years ago."
"Who is he?"
I looked away, staring out into the black woods where my past had just stepped out of a grave. "His name is Lucian Vance. He was my father’s enforcer. And my betrothed."
The silence inside the cabin grew suffocating.
"Betrothed," Dominic repeated, tasting the word like poison. "The Vance family ran the Boston ports until their empire was burned to the ground overnight in twenty-sixteen. Rumor was that the patriarch’s daughter vanished with fifty million in syndicate bearer bonds."
"I didn't take the bonds!" I snapped, turning back to him, raw anger breaking through my composure. "I ran because my father and Lucian were butchering anyone who questioned them, including children. I ran because Lucian was going to lock me in a gilded cage until I produced an heir to legitimize his takeover! I took five thousand dollars, forged a social security card, and spent eight years running from that nightmare."
"And you brought that nightmare directly into my house," Dominic said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "To my son."
"I didn't bring him here!" Tears of fury and exhaustion stung the corners of my eyes. "I didn't know he was alive! When I took the job at Blackthorne House, I chose it because you were the only man on the East Coast powerful enough that nobody would dare come snooping around your perimeter. I wanted to be invisible!"
"Well, you failed," Dominic said coldly.
He threw the car in reverse, backing out of the broken fence line and turning back toward the manor. He drove in silence, the air between us crackling with electric tension.
When we pulled back into the courtyard, Nolan and a dozen heavily armed security operatives swarmed the vehicle.
"Boss! What happened?" Nolan shouted over the roar of the rain.
"Perimeter breach," Dominic said, stepping out into the storm. "Double the patrols on the river boundary. I want thermal drones running continuous sweeps over the perimeter. Nobody enters or leaves without my personal biometric authorization."
"What about the maid?" Nolan asked, casting a suspicious glance at me as I struggled out of the passenger side, clutching my throbbing shoulder.
"She stays in my quarters," Dominic announced loud enough for the entire courtyard to hear. "Under twenty-four-hour guard. If she takes one step outside my suite without me, shoot to incapacitate."
Nolan blinked in surprise, but quickly nodded. "Understood."
Dominic grabbed my good arm, not roughly, but with an unyielding grip that brooked no resistance, and marched me back inside the mansion.
He didn't take me back to the guest wing. He led me up the private spiral staircase to the penthouse level—his personal sanctuary. The master suite was vast, minimalist, dominated by dark slate, floor-to-ceiling glass, and a king-sized bed facing the river.
Dominic locked the heavy double doors behind us with a keycard and a fingerprint scan.
He turned to face me, stripping off his soaked jacket and tossing it onto an armchair. Underneath, his black shirt clung to his muscular frame.
"You're going to tell me everything," Dominic said, stepping toward me until my back pressed against the cold glass of the balcony door. "Every name. Every safe house. Every connection Lucian Vance still has in this city."
"I don't know them!" I gasped, the physical toll of the night dragging me down. My legs buckled slightly, the wound in my shoulder tearing open with a sharp, wet agony.
Dominic’s hands shot out, catching me by the waist before I hit the floor.
His touch was searing through the damp fabric of my clothes. For a second, our faces were inches apart, our breath mingling in the dim light of the suite. I saw the fierce, violent conflict in his eyes—the ruthless don who should have executed me for bringing danger to his family, fighting against the man who remembered that I had bled for his son.
"Why didn't you let Caleb die?" Dominic whispered, his fingers digging into my hips to keep me upright. "If you were hiding, if you wanted to stay a ghost, the smartest thing you could have done was stay down and let the bullets hit him."
"Because he's an innocent boy," I breathed, looking straight into the darkness of his eyes. "And unlike you, unlike Lucian, I haven't lost my humanity."
Dominic stared at my lips, his jaw clenching so hard a muscle twitched in his cheek. His hand slid slowly up my spine, supporting my injured weight, his touch surprisingly gentle despite the lethal tension humming through his frame.
"You have no idea what I've lost," he murmured, his voice dipping low, dangerous, and intoxicatingly intimate.
Then, the landline phone on his bedside table began to ring.
It wasn't an internal extension. It was the secure red line.
Dominic froze. He slowly lowered me onto the edge of the leather chaise lounge, keeping his eyes on me as he walked over to the desk and lifted the receiver.
"Mercer."
There was a pause. Then a familiar, cultured voice echoed faintly from the speaker, dripping with aristocratic malice.
*"Hello, Dominic. I believe you have something that belongs to me."*
May you like
Lucian.
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