Chapter 2 - THE WOLF’S DEN
The private elevator ride down to the main drawing room felt like descending into an execution chamber.
Damon stood beside me, his shoulder brushing mine, radiating a terrifying, controlled aura of absolute dominance. His men flanked us—two elite guards in front, two behind. My mind raced backward through the past eighteen hours. I was just Vivian Cross, an exhausted, underpaid event coordinator working for GalaTech Solutions, trying to pay off my mother’s medical bills. I had survived on coffee, stale pastries, and screaming supervisors. I didn't know anything about Boston’s underworld, let alone the Castellano family tree, except that crossing them meant you stopped existing.
"Damon," I whispered, my voice trembling as the elevator chimes signaled our arrival at the ground floor. "I can’t do this. I’m an event planner. I can’t pretend to be your fiancée in front of mafia bosses. They’ll see right through me in two seconds."
Damon stopped. He turned, placing a scarred hand gently under my chin, forcing me to look up into his cold, pale eyes.
"Listen to me, Vivian," he said, every syllable sharp as glass. "If they think you are an accidental trespasser or a random employee who stumbled onto private family business, they will eliminate you to protect their secrets before the sun reaches noon. By claiming you as my fiancée, I just painted a target on your back—but I also gave you an impenetrable shield. As long as they think you belong to me, no one can touch you without declaring war on the entire Castellano syndicate."
The sheer weight of his logic paralyzed me. He hadn't just saved my reputation; he had weaponized my survival.
"And what happens when this is over?" I asked, my heart hammering against my ribs.
A dark, dangerous shadow crossed his face. "Then we'll talk about what happens next. But right now, we walk out those doors."
The heavy mahogany doors of the drawing room swung open automatically.
The room was packed. Dozens of men in expensive, tailored suits stood in tight, tense circles, their voices cutting off the moment we appeared. At the center of the room stood a thick-set older man with salt-and-pepper hair and a face carved from granite—Salvatore Rossi, head of the North End faction.
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Rossi’s eyes darted past Damon, landing directly on me, standing there in an oversized dress shirt with messy hair and bare feet wrapped in a silk robe.
"Damon," Rossi rumbled, stepping forward, his voice dripping with false joviality and thinly veiled menace. "Word travels fast in Boston. They say you brought a stray cat into the Ravenscourt fortress. But looking at her... she doesn't look like a guest."
