Chapter 4 - What the Cameras Didn't Show
"We need to move, boss," Gavin’s voice cut through the heavy emotional silence from the driver’s seat. "Local police will have calls on the gunfire within three minutes. State troopers are already patrolling the highway."
Declan nodded once, never breaking eye contact with me. He climbed fully into the spacious rear cabin, pulling the heavy door shut and sealing us inside the insulated cocoon of luxury. He didn't let go of my hand. His fingers were locked around mine like a lifeline, his thumb stroking my knuckles with rhythmic, possessive tenderness.
As the Maybach accelerated smoothly down the winding mountain pass, leaving the wreckage behind, Declan pulled a clean silk handkerchief from his pocket to dab at the blood on his cheek.
"You burned it," he murmured softly, nodding toward the charred ultrasound remnant resting on the center console between us. "You really believed I could discard you like that?"
"What was I supposed to think, Declan?" I asked, looking out at the blurring pines. "You come from a world where people are currency. Alliances, marriages, bloodlines—it’s all business to the Voss family. You never told me who Savannah Calloway really was."
"Because knowing her name made you a target," he countered fiercely. "Savannah wasn't just an arranged bride; her father held the shipping ports on Lake Michigan. For six months, he tried to force my hand by threatening my legitimate supply chains. When he realized business threats didn't scare me, he sent men to tail me. They photographed us leaving your gallery in Lincoln Park."
A cold shudder ran down my spine. I remembered that evening—Declan holding an umbrella over my head, laughing as we ran through a spring downpour to an Italian bistro. What had felt like romance had actually been an execution sentence being drafted in the shadows.
"The day of the announcement," Declan continued, his voice dropping into a harsh gravel tone, "Calloway’s enforcers were stationed on the roof opposite your studio. Savannah walked into my office to deliver an ultimatum: announce the union live at noon, or Amelia Hayes suffers an unfortunate fall down her studio stairs."
My hands instinctively tightened on my lap. "So you walked out onto that stage."
"I walked onto that stage to save your life," he said, turning fully toward me, his gaze blazing with an intensity that burned. "The cameras saw an alliance. What they didn't broadcast was what happened twenty minutes later in the private corridor."
Declan pulled his phone from his pocket, tapped the screen, and handed it to me.
It was a security feed timestamped the day I disappeared. The video showed Declan and Savannah in a marble hallway behind the press room. On screen, the charming smile Declan had worn for the journalists was completely gone. In the footage, he grabbed Savannah by the throat, pinning her against the wall with such raw savagery that her pearl necklace snapped, scattering white beads across the floor.
Even without audio, the venom on his face was terrifying.
"I told her that if anyone in her family even breathed in your direction, I would hang her father from the Michigan Avenue bridge," Declan said quietly beside me. "I thought I bought you twenty-four hours of safety while Gavin mobilized my private strike team. But when I got to your apartment at three in the morning... your closet was empty. Your phone was smashed in the sink. And the fireplace was cold."
Tears blurred my vision again. I looked down at my lap, remembering the agonizing heartbreak that had driven me to pack that solitary duffel bag in the dead of night. "I was terrified, Declan. I heard the word 'resolved'. To a mafia boss, resolving someone usually means a shallow grave in the woods."
Declan caught my chin, tilting my face upward until our eyes met.
"I have killed men for disrespecting my name," Declan whispered, his lips mere inches from mine. "I have destroyed entire empires for threatening my business. But I would burn Chicago to ash before I ever let a single hair on your head be harmed. You are not a transaction, Amelia. You are the only clean thing in my blackened, miserable life."
He leaned down, pressing his lips to mine. The kiss was desperate, frantic, tasting of salt, pine needles, and the iron of his cut skin. It was an apology, a claim, and a vow all at once.
When he pulled back, his hand slipped down to rest over our child again.
"We are going home," he stated softly.
May you like
"I can't go back to that penthouse, Declan," I whispered, shaking my head. "Every window looks like a sniper's nest. Every elevator feels like a cage."
Declan’s dark eyes hardened with an unbreakable resolve. "Then we don't go back to the penthouse. We go somewhere they can never touch you again."
