Chapter 6 - Blood on the White Linen
Elena heard his footsteps approaching—heavy, deliberate, and resonant with an energy that felt like an impending hurricane. She kept her eyes glued to the scuffed floorboards, her breath trapped in her chest.
A hand reached out.
It was large, calloused, and trembling with a violent tenderness. Darius didn't touch her face. Instead, his fingers gently slid under the rough gray fabric of her apron, lifting her right hand with exquisite caution, as if he were holding spun glass that might shatter under his pulse.
He looked down at the soaked gauze, at the mud clinging to her wrists, at the faint silver band peeking through the torn fibers.
""Elena,"" he choked out. The name wasn't a command; it was a prayer whispered in a confessional.
He slowly reached up and removed the black service cap from her head. Her chestnut hair fell around her shoulders in tangled, damp waves. The bruise on her cheekbone, purple and swollen from the car ambush, stood out starkly against her pale skin.
The entire banquet hall gasped.
Plates rattled as men stood up in shock. Albert’s face drained of every drop of color, turning the sickly shade of spoiled milk. Lorenzo Romano slowly pushed his chair back from the table, his hands raised in plain view, realizing in an instant that the game was over.
""You told her to sit with the staff?"" Darius spoke without turning around, his eyes never leaving Elena’s battered fingers. His voice was soft, yet it carried into every corner of the vast room, freezing the blood of the man who had uttered the insult.
The underboss who had snapped his fingers turned white. ""Boss... I didn't know... she was dressed like a—""
Darius drew his weapon with blinding speed. Without looking, he leveled the barrel over his left shoulder and pulled the trigger.
The gunshot was deafening inside the enclosed hall. The underboss collapsed backward into his chair, a bullet hole through his shoulder, screaming in agony as he slid onto the carpet. Nobody moved to help him.
Darius holstered the sidearm, took Elena’s bloody, bandaged hands into his own, and brought them to his mouth, kissing the stained cotton over and over again. Tears, hot and unashamed, spilled from his dark eyes and washed the soot from her knuckles.
""Forgive me,"" he whispered against her skin, his frame shuddering with an anguish none of his hardened soldiers had ever witnessed. ""Forgive me, my heart. Look at what my blindness did to you.""
""Darius,"" Elena whispered, her voice trembling as the adrenaline that had carried her through the harbor finally began to fade. ""Albert... he's taking the shipping yards tonight. He sold your father's ports.""
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Darius slowly straightened his spine. When he turned back toward the dais, all trace of humanity had vanished from his features. In its place stood the cold, unyielding Don of the most ruthless organization on the eastern seaboard.
""Uncle,"" Darius said, his voice dropping into a register that made the crystal drops on the chandeliers vibrate. ""Come down from my chair.""
