Chapter 7 - The Mastermind in the Shadows
Ethan fell to his knees on the damp wooden floorboards of the porch.
The proud, untouchable boss of the Blackwood family buried his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking violently as a dam broke inside him. Tears streamed down his rough cheeks, soaking into his sleeves. He had faced firing squads, survived bullet wounds, and walked through fire without making a sound, but kneeling before the woman he had abandoned, the agony broke him into pieces.
"I chose wrong," Ethan choked out, his voice muffled by his hands. "Claire... I chose wrong. The second the ceiling collapsed, I looked for you, but when she screamed... I was weak. I was an arrogant, blind fool who thought you would always be there waiting for me. I didn't save you."
Claire didn't move away. She stood above him, watching the mighty crime boss crumble into a man who was finally, painfully human.
Slowly, she knelt down on the cedar planks in front of him. She reached out and placed her small, warm hands over his wrists, gently pulling his hands away from his face.
"Ethan, look at me," she said softly.
He forced his bloodshot eyes open. His vision was blurred with tears, but Claire’s face was sharp, luminous, and steady before him.
"You didn't choose wrong in the fire, Ethan," Claire said, her voice shaking with quiet emotion. "You chose wrong two years ago. The fire was just the final receipt."
"I disbanded the syndicate," Ethan whispered, his breath hitching. "It's over, Claire. The men are paid off. The guns are surrendered. Torres has all the paperwork for the corporate holdings. I gave them everything. I didn't keep a single dollar. I didn't keep a single title deed."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the scorched platinum ring. He held it out on the flat of his palm, trembling.
"The only thing I took from the ashes was this," he said. "Because if I couldn't have your forgiveness, I wanted to spend the rest of my life remembering the woman who tried to save my soul while I was busy throwing it away."
Claire looked down at the blackened ring. She saw the uneven engraving: E & C. She remembered the humid afternoon in the jeweler's shop in Florence when they had laughed over the jeweler's magnifying glass, young, reckless, and deeply in love before his father’s death had dragged them into the mafia abyss.
"Julian Vance didn't just want to steal the money, Ethan," Claire said quietly, looking back up at him. "He had a sniper positioned on the roof of the bank across from the Grand Crescent. If you had walked out of that east exit beside me, you would have taken a high-caliber round to the throat before you reached the pavement."
Ethan went completely still. "What?"
"I discovered Vance’s contract with the Montreal hitmen two days before the gala," Claire revealed. "That’s why I wedged the west door open. That’s why I staged the collapse. I needed you to go out through the side alleyway with Vanessa. Because I knew the shooters were only tracking you and me together."
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Ethan stared at her in horrified realization. "You staged your own disappearance... to save my life?"
"I saved your life because I promised to love you until death parted us," Claire said, a solitary tear finally escaping her gray eyes and rolling down her cheek. "And that night, the man you were had to die so that the man sitting in front of me could finally breathe."
