Chapter 1 - The Blood on the Marble
“Dominic, this is absurd. Why is she still here?” Celeste’s voice scraped like broken glass across the hollow silence of the wrecked dining room. Her pristine ivory gown looked obscene against the smears of fresh crimson and pulverized crystal covering the floor. She pointed a manicured finger directly at Elena, whose hands were still slippery with Dominic’s blood as she held the linen napkin against his torn shoulder. “Get security to throw her out. She’s covered in dirt, she caused this entire scene, and for all we know, she was working with the shooter!”
Dominic didn’t look at his fiancée. His pupils were dilated from adrenaline and the burning shock of the gunshot wound, but his gaze remained locked on Elena’s pale, determined face. “Celeste,” he said, his voice dropping into that chilling, lethal timber that usually made seasoned executives check their pulses, “walk out that door, get into the town car, and do not speak to me until I send for you.”
Celeste took half a step backward, stunned into silence. Nobody spoke to her like that, least of all the billionaire heir who had placed a flawless diamond on her finger three months prior. But Dominic’s eyes held no warmth, only the jagged edge of an impending storm. Gabriel, Dominic’s imposing cousin who was still holding Vincent Hale face-down against the marble with his heavy service boot, gave Celeste a look that promised violence if she hesitated another second. Snatching her silver clutch from a shattered side table, Celeste turned on her stilettos and vanished down the gallery.
Dr. Jonathan Mercer, the estate’s private physician, rushed in breathless, his medical bag snapping open on the floor beside them. “Dominic, let me see that arm. Sit still.”
“Patch it up fast,” Dominic rasped, wincing slightly as Mercer applied antiseptic shears to his ruined shirt sleeve. He reached out with his uninjured arm and caught Elena’s wrist before she could stand up to slip away into the shadows of the servant corridors. His grip was scorching hot, impossible to shake off. “You’re not going anywhere, Elena Whitmore. Gabriel, take Vincent downstairs into the wine vault. Secure his hands, his feet, and his jaw. If he swallows a capsule or cuts an artery, I will hold you personally responsible.”
Gabriel grunted, hauling the bleeding traitor upward by the collar of his suit jacket. Vincent spat a mouthful of dark saliva onto the pristine herringbone wood, glaring not at Dominic, but at Elena. “You were supposed to stay dead in Detroit, little girl,” Vincent sneered, his breath wheezing through bruised ribs. “You think you’re saving him? You’re walking him straight into the furnace.”
Elena felt an icy wire pull tight behind her sternum, but she kept her chin elevated. “You should have looked twice before you left the crash site, Vincent.”
Gabriel slammed Vincent forward, dragging him out through the reinforced blast door that led toward the subterranean chambers of the compound. The dining hall descended into a terrible, heavy quiet, punctuated only by the physician’s quiet stitching and the hiss of sterile wraps.
Dominic didn’t make a sound as the surgical needle pierced his flesh seven times. He kept his eyes on Elena, taking in the smudge of soot across her temple, the ragged hem of her standard-issue service apron, and the fierce, defiant pride burning behind her hazel eyes. “You took a bullet for me,” he murmured softly, so low that Dr. Mercer couldn’t hear over his own concentrated breathing.
“I threw a silver tray at an idiot with a gun,” Elena corrected him, her voice trembling slightly now that the shock wave was settling into her bones. “It’s called basic human instinct. Don’t flatter yourself, Mr. Moretti.”
“You whispered six words that only three men on this earth should know,” he countered, his voice steadying as the physician finished the bandage. Dominic pushed Mercer’s hands away, stood up tall despite the blood loss, and adjusted the shredded fabric of his collar. He towered over her, six feet three inches of terrifying power and wounded fury. “My brother Julian supposedly burned to ash inside a locked Mercedes sedan seven years ago on the shoulder of Interstate 94. I buried an empty coffin with his name on the brass plate. And you just told me he’s alive.”
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“I told you what I saw,” Elena whispered, stepping back until her spine hit the mahogany sideboard.
Dominic took a single, deliberate stride toward her, closing the distance until she could smell the cedar smoke, fine bourbon, and iron in his breath. “Then you and I are going to sit down in my private office right now, Miss Whitmore. And you are going to tell me every single breath you took between that highway fire and this dining room floor.”
