Chapter 3 - Ten Years of Silence
""Her name isn't Reyes, is it?"" Declan asked, his voice dropping into a register that made the heavy velvet curtains seem to hold their breath.
Addie leaned her forehead against the wood of the door, her shoulders shaking silently. ""No,"" she whispered.
""Get out,"" Declan said, still looking at Addie.
Serena stepped between them, her panic mounting into frantic hysteria. ""Declan, listen to me! This is an obvious setup! This woman is an opportunist! She probably looked at your old medical records or stole photos from your private safe! You are sick, Declan! The stress is going to kill you, please, Bennett, tell him—""
""I am not dying, Serena,"" Declan said calmly, turning his gaze toward her.
Serena stopped cold. ""What?""
""I don't have cancer,"" Declan said, his tone chillingly conversational. ""The private oncologist in Boston works for me. The leaked blood panels were altered by my private security team. The weakness, the tremors, the fatigue—it was all theater. I needed to see what would happen to this house the moment people thought the wolf was too old to bite.""
A dead, suffocating silence descended on the library. Bennett Cross took an involuntary step toward the exit, but found Marcus blocking the doorway with his massive arms crossed.
""You... you lied to me?"" Serena stammered, blood rushing into her cheeks. ""You tested me? After everything I gave up for you? After how I stayed by your side?""
""You stayed by my side for forty-eight days until Bennett drafted a conservatorship,"" Declan replied coldly. ""You didn't weep for me, Serena. You wept for the inventory."" He turned his back on her, dismissing her existence entirely. ""Marcus, take Ms. Ward and Mr. Cross to the west salon. Confiscate their phones, their laptops, and their keys. If either of them attempts to leave the property before the Rhode Island State Police arrive to review Bennett’s unauthorized wire transfers, put them in the basement cellar.""
""You can't do this, Cole!"" Bennett yelled as Marcus grabbed him by the scruff of his expensive wool coat. ""I am an officer of the court!""
""I own the court in this county, Bennett,"" Declan said without looking back. ""Be grateful I'm involving the police instead of the harbor.""
The heavy doors shut, cutting off Serena's shrieking protests and Bennett's desperate legal threats. The room was suddenly empty, save for the ticking of the grandfather clock, the patter of the storm, and the three people who remained.
Declan stood alone in the center of the vast Persian rug. He looked at Callie, who was still clutching her sleeve, watching him with an uncanny mixture of caution and curiosity. Then he looked at Addie.
""A room above a laundromat on Fayette Street,"" Declan said, his memory dredging up the cold, rain-soaked winter of Baltimore ten years ago. ""I had two cracked ribs and a bullet graze on my hip. A girl with dark eyes brought me clean towels, warm soup, and never asked why my coat was soaked in another man's blood.""
""You called yourself Del Coleman,"" Addie said, stepping fully into the library. Her voice was steady now, stripped of the subservience she had worn like armor. ""You stayed four nights. On the fifth morning, three black sedans blocked the alley, and you were gone through the fire escape before I could bring up the breakfast I bought with my last five dollars.""
""I left twenty thousand dollars under the mattress, Addie,"" Declan said softly.
""The landlord found it when he kicked down my door looking for you,"" she replied, a bitter smile touching her lips. ""I spent the next eight months living in a women's shelter in South Philly. By the time Callie was born, your face was on the cover of the Wall Street Journal. Declan Cole. The undisputed king of New England freight. A man who moves politicians like chess pieces.""
May you like
She looked around the towering mahogany bookshelves, the gold-leaf ceiling, the priceless nautical oil paintings.
""How was I supposed to walk into your world with a baby in my arms, Declan? Tell your armed guards that the street cleaner from Baltimore had your child? I would have ended up in a concrete pillar at the bottom of Narragansett Bay.""
