Chapter 12 - Blood on the Ivory Gown
The announcement of our engagement ran on the front page of the Chicago Tribune beneath the headline: *RECLUSIVE BILLIONAIRE ARTHUR VANCE TO WED ESTATE CURATOR.*
It was a delicate lie engineered by our publicists to scrub away the scent of mop water and industrial floor bleach from my name.
To the high society vultures circling the Drake Hotel, I was a mysterious scholar of fine arts; to those who traded in blood, I was the stray maid who had climbed into a monster’s bed to steal a dynasty.
Three days later, Madam Delacroix arrived at the Vance Manor with five seamstresses and three trunk loads of hand-spun French silk.
The Gold Coast’s premier bridal designer was a woman of aristocratic cruelty who had dressed the daughters of governors, senators, and syndicate lords for three decades.
"The neckline must be conservative," Madam Delacroix said sharply, her cold pins biting into my shoulder as she pulled the ivory lace taut across my collarbone. "We must obscure the scars, Miss Hayes. Society can forgive poverty, but it recoils at violence."
I met her reflection in the full-length gilded mirror, watching her fingers tremble slightly against my skin.
"The scars stay visible, Madam," I said evenly. "They remind Arthur’s friends what happens when they miscalculate."
The Frenchwoman gasped, stepping back as if pricked by her own needle.
Outside the dressing salon, the rain beat relentlessly against the high mullioned windows, turning the sprawling lawns into a gray, sodden marsh.
The manor was under lockdown, with sentries posted at every ten paces along the perimeter walls, their rifles concealed beneath heavy oilskin coats.
The door to the salon creaked open, and Mrs. Higgins, the head housekeeper who had once ordered me to scrub the coal bins, entered carrying a silver tray.
Her eyes were downcast, her face pale as parchment, refusing to meet my gaze.
"A delivery for Miss Hayes," Mrs. Higgins whispered, setting a small, ribbon-wrapped wooden box onto the mahogany vanity table. "Left at the side gate by a courier who fled before the guards could detain him."
"Did security scan it?" I asked, stepping away from the pedestal despite the unfinished hem trailing beneath my feet.
"Yes, ma'am. No explosives. Only... organic matter, the guard said."
I reached out and cut the black velvet ribbon with Delacroix’s heavy fabric shears.
The lid lifted easily, releasing a sickeningly sweet odor that made the seamstresses gag and retreat toward the windows.
Inside, resting on a bed of dry moss, was a severed white dove, its throat slit from ear to ear, with a small gold signet ring forced into its beak.
The signet ring bore the crest of the Moretti family—an inverted cross wrapped in ivy.
Beneath the carcass lay a handwritten card penned in elegant, old-world calligraphy:
*An ivory dress stains faster than a floor, little maid. See you at the altar.*
"Norah!" Arthur’s voice thundered from the hallway before the heavy double doors swung open, bouncing violently off the wall stops.
He was in his shirtsleeves, his shoulder holster visible, a Glock 19 clutched in his right hand.
He took in the open box, the blood-soaked feathers, and the terror plastered across the staff’s faces in a single sweep of his predatory gaze.
He reached the vanity in two strides, slamming the wooden lid shut and hurling the box into the open marble fireplace where flames consumed it in a hiss of foul smoke.
"Clear the room," Arthur commanded, his voice shaking with a fury that rattled the glass panes.
The seamstresses scrambled out without collecting their shears, tumbling over their skirts in their desperation to escape.
Madam Delacroix paused at the threshold, casting a pitying glance in my direction. "God help you, child. You are marrying a war."
When the door clicked shut, Arthur grabbed my shoulders, pulling me into him, his breath hot against my ear.
"You are going to the safehouse in Wisconsin tonight," he ordered, his fingers digging into the silk gown. "Moretti has breached the outer perimeter lines in Cook County. He has informants inside the CPD."
"No," I pulled back, gripping his forearms with equal force, feeling the steel cords of his muscles. "I am not running to a cabin in the woods like a frightened mistress."
"You don't know what Moretti does to women, Norah!" Arthur shouted, his composure shattering for the first time since I met him. "He flays them. He sends pieces of them back in cedar crates to break the spirit of the men he hunts. I will not watch you die because of my name!"
"And I will not let you fight him alone!" I screamed back, matching his fury note for note. "You spent five years isolated behind these walls waiting for Marcus to slit your throat, and you only survived because I was in that basement! If you push me away now, you are already dead, Arthur Vance!"
Silence descended over the room, broken only by the crackle of the burning bird in the grate and the sound of our ragged breathing.
Arthur stared at me, his jaw clenched so hard a muscle twitched beneath his skin, before he slowly raised his hand and cradled my cheek.
"You are out of your mind," he whispered, a mixture of agony and awe in his eyes.
May you like
"I learned it from you," I answered, placing my hand over his. "Now tell me where Moretti’s money is entering the city, and let us hit him before he takes his seat at our wedding."
***
