Chapter 9 - The House on Mercer
They did not return to the penthouse on Park Avenue. Neither of them could bear the sight of the white marble island where the six photographs had sat like a death sentence.
Darius instructed his drivers to take them back to the Mercer Street safe house.
The building had already been scrubbed by a professional cleanup crew; the broken door had been replaced with a solid steel reinforced core, the blood washed from the floorboards, the broken glass swept away.
Yet the room still smelled of damp plaster and copper.
Evelyn walked into the bedroom, pulling off her ruined coat and tossing it into a wastebasket. She sat on the edge of the mattress, resting her elbows on her knees, staring down at her bare feet.
Darius stood in the doorway, his arm in a black sling, watching her with a reverence bordering on religious terror.
"I signed the transfer papers thirty minutes ago," he said softly.
Evelyn didn't look up. "What papers?"
"Everything," he answered. "The penthouse. The Mayfair townhouse. The holding companies. The family trust accounts. All of it has been transferred entirely into your sole legal name."
She lifted her head, her dark eyes flashing with sudden, sharp anger. "You think this is about money, Darius? You think you can buy back your conscience with deeds and bond certificates?"
"No," he said, stepping into the room and dropping to his knees beside the bed. "I know money means nothing to you. You walked away from an eight-figure trust when you chose to work twelve-hour shifts in an ER."
He reached out, his trembling fingers hovering inches from her knee, not daring to make contact without her permission.
"I gave it to you so you never have to be trapped again," he choked out, hot tears spilling down his cheeks once more. "If you want to leave me... if you want to walk out that door right now and never hear the name Darius Costa for the rest of your life... you leave as the most powerful, protected woman in this country."
Evelyn looked down at the man kneeling in front of her.
This was the King of New York, a man feared by politicians and crime lords across two continents, weeping against her bed like a terrified child who had broken his mother’s most precious heirloom.
"You didn't trust me, Darius," she whispered, her voice cracking as the exhaustion of the last twelve hours finally overwhelmed her defenses. "You looked at those pictures and you believed the worst about me within ten seconds."
"Because I hated myself," he confessed, burying his face in the blankets beside her knees. "I looked at you every day and wondered when you would wake up and realize you married a monster. When Albert showed me those pictures, my sick, twisted mind told me the nightmare had finally arrived. I punished you because I couldn't bear the thought that I wasn't enough to keep you clean."
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Evelyn let out a long, shuddering breath. Her hand moved slowly, almost against her own will, until her fingers gently touched the back of his neck.
Darius gasped at the warmth of her touch, his entire frame shuddering under the sudden release of agony.
