Chapter 5 - An Offer Sealed in Blood
Graham backed away until his shoulders struck the reinforced concrete wall. Sweat was beading across his forehead, ruining the immaculate styling of his hair. ""Nina,"" he stammered, looking past Marco toward me, his voice pitching into a pathetic whine. ""Nina, tell him. Tell him you forgive me. We can fix this. You're my wife! Think about our vows! Think about our family!""
""You didn't care about our family when you threw my pregnancy test into the trash can,"" I said, stepping out from behind Marco. The fear that had kept me obedient for four years had vanished completely, burned away by the sheer magnitude of his disgusting hypocrisy. ""You didn't care when you decided to let me rot in a federal penitentiary while you sipped cocktails on Lake Geneva.""
Graham lunged forward, his hands clawing toward my arm. ""You owe me!"" he screamed. ""I plucked you from that pathetic auction house! You were nothing before you met me!""
Before Graham’s fingers could brush my coat, Marco’s arm moved with blur-fast violence. He caught Graham by the throat, slamming him against the concrete wall with enough force to crack the mortar. Graham gasped, kicking wildly, his polished leather shoes scraping uselessly against the floor.
""If you raise your hands toward her again,"" Marco growled, his voice dropping into an icy register that made the hair on my arms stand up, ""I will peel the skin from your fingers one joint at a time. Do you understand me?""
Graham nodded desperately, choking against Marco’s steel grip. Marco dropped him unceremoniously to the floor, where my husband crumpled into a miserable, wheezing heap on the cold stone.
Marco turned back to me, his gaze softening instantly, as if he had switched between two entirely different human beings. ""The assets in Switzerland have already been redirected into an irrevocable trust under your maiden name,"" he said calmly, pulling a clean linen handkerchief from his pocket and wiping his knuckles. ""Twenty-two million dollars. Enough to raise a child, buy any home in the world, and never look over your shoulder again.""
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""Why would you do that for me?"" I asked, bewildered by the scale of his intervention. ""You don't even know me. We met twelve hours ago in the rain.""
Marco looked down at Graham, then back to me. ""I told you last night. Years ago, my sister needed a way out of an abusive arrangement with a corrupt banker. I was young, reckless, and told her to play by the rules and wait for the legal system to work. Three weeks later, she was dead in a staged car accident."" He paused, his jaw tightening with ancient, unresolved grief. ""I promised myself that if God ever put another woman in my path fighting for her life against a monster in a suit, I would destroy the monster before he could land the blow. Now, Nina... what do you want done with your husband?""
