Chapter 6 - The Confrontation in the Shadows
I did not drop the black binder; I held it against my chest like armor, glaring at the man who had bought my soul.
You used me from the very first second you looked at me at that catering bar, I shouted, my voice shaking with rage.
You did not catch that champagne glass out of kindness; you were inspecting the daughter of the woman you wanted to kill!
Dominic did not lower his firearm until he stepped fully into the room, tossing the weapon casually onto the leather sofa.
He walked toward the desk with deliberate, measured steps, completely unbothered by my furious accusations.
Every word you just spoke is entirely accurate regarding why I went to the hotel that night, he answered coldly.
He leaned across the desk, closing the distance between our faces until I could feel the heat radiating from his skin.
My father was murdered in cold blood while recovering from a non-fatal wound, poisoned by an IV your mother administered.
For twenty years, the Evans name was a ghost that vanished into the Midwest while my family bled for answers.
Then why am I not locked in a basement with your butchers, I screamed, slamming the binder down between us.
Why did you force a priest into my ICU room to make me your wife while seven bullets were tearing through my organs?
Dominic reached out, his gloved fingers gripping my jaw with fierce, unyielding intensity that forced me to look into his eyes.
Because when the gunfire erupted, you did not run like a coward or hide behind a table to save your own pathetic life.
You threw your fragile, defenseless body over my mother and absorbed lead that was meant to tear her heart apart.
His thumb brushed across my cheek, wiping away a furious tear that had escaped my control.
You proved to me in three seconds that whatever poison existed in your bloodline did not belong to your soul.
I pulled my face away from his grip, breathing heavily as the raw emotion threatened to tear my stitches apart.
My mother is not a murderer, Dominic, I spat, defending the only person who had ever truly loved me.
She spent her entire existence healing broken people; she would never deliberately administer a fatal dose of anything!
Dominic’s jaw hardened, the shadows in his face deepening as thunder rattled the mansion's exterior walls.
Then explain why Victor Costa paid off her student loans the morning after my father’s heart stopped beating, Dominic countered.
The room went deathly silent, the weight of his revelation crushing the breath from my burning lungs.
Before I could answer the devastating accusation, the blaring shriek of the estate's perimeter alarm shattered the night.
Enzo burst through the library doors, his shirt torn and an automatic rifle clutched tightly in his hands.
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The north gate has been breached, Dominic, Enzo roared over the wailing sirens.
Costa didn't come for the docks; he brought fifty men with heavy artillery to burn this house to the ground!
