Chapter 3 - SECRETS BURIED IN BOSTON
The interior of the SUV was a cavern of black leather and tinted glass, completely insulated from the howling wind and the torrential rain outside. The only sound was the heavy, rhythmic thumping of the windshield wipers and the soft, terrified breathing of the woman sitting as far away from Damen as the seat allowed.
Lily was sitting in the middle, swinging her small legs, looking around the luxurious vehicle with wide-eyed wonder. The tension in the car was so thick it felt like physical pressure, but the child, innocent to the deadly politics of the Boston underworld, simply thought she was riding in a spaceship.
"Mom, this car is huge," Lily whispered loudly, pointing to the glowing ambient lights tracing the ceiling. "It's like a movie."
"Sit still, Lily," Clara said, her voice tight, her hands locked together in her lap. She was staring straight ahead at the privacy partition separating them from Marcus in the driver's seat. She refused to look to her left, where Damen sat bathed in the shadows of the passing streetlights.
Damen watched her. He couldn't stop. He traced the lines of her profile, noticing the faint silver scar above her eyebrow that hadn't been there seven years ago, the way her shoulders curved defensively inward, the cheap, frayed cuffs of her beige coat. She looked like she had spent the last two thousand days surviving on scraps and sheer willpower.
"Where have you been, Clara?" Damen asked, his voice low, cutting through the silence like a scalpel.
Clara flinched. "Everywhere. Nowhere. It doesn't matter, Damen. Let us out at the next red light. Please."
"It matters to me," he said, shifting slightly closer. Clara immediately pressed herself harder against the door. The instinctual retreat sent a spike of hot anger through him—not at her, but at whatever had made her this afraid. "You vanished. You left the apartment. You left your clothes, your phone. There was blood on the kitchen floor, Clara. My father told me the O’Connor syndicate took you. I ripped the O’Connors apart looking for you."
Clara finally turned her head, her eyes flashing with a sudden, desperate anger. "Your father lied to you, Damen! The O’Connors didn't take me."
Damen froze. "What are you talking about?"
Clara looked down at Lily, who was watching them with growing concern. Clara took a deep breath, forcing her anger down into a small, cold box. She reached out and covered Lily's ears with her hands, pressing the child's head gently against her side.
"It wasn't a rival family," Clara whispered fiercely, leaning in just enough for Damen to hear her over the hum of the tires. "It was your family. It was your father's men. They came into our apartment while you were meeting with the Italians. They dragged me into the kitchen. They put a gun to my head."
The world seemed to stop spinning. The streetlights outside blurred into continuous streaks of yellow and red.
"Why?" Damen asked, his voice completely hollow. "Why would my father order a hit on you?"
"Because you loved me," Clara spat the words out like they were poison. "And because I was pregnant. Your father found out. He said I was a weakness. A distraction. He said the heir to the Vance empire couldn't be tied down by a civilian girl and a bastard child. He said you needed to marry the Rossi girl to secure the docks. I was a loose end."
Damen felt a cold, murderous darkness expanding in his chest. His father, the man he had buried three years ago with full honors, the man whose ring he currently wore on his right hand, had tried to execute the woman he loved.
"But you survived," Damen said, his eyes scanning her face, looking for the truth. "How? If my father ordered it, his men wouldn't have missed."
Clara’s eyes flickered toward the privacy screen, toward the silhouette of the man driving the SUV.
"Because the man he sent to pull the trigger let me go," Clara whispered, her voice breaking. "He told me to run. He gave me a new ID and five thousand dollars, and told me if I ever stepped foot in Boston again, he would have to finish the job."
Damen slowly turned his head to look at the thick, soundproof glass separating him from his most trusted underboss.
Marcus.
The pieces fell into place with the sickening sound of breaking bones. Marcus had been his father’s most lethal enforcer before he became Damen's right hand. Marcus had recognized the name Whitmore. Marcus had recognized Lily. Because Marcus was the ghost who had chased them out of the city.
"I only came back because Lily was sick," Clara was saying, the tears finally spilling over her eyelashes, tracing the pale curve of her cheeks. "She has severe asthma. Her specialist is here at Mass General. We were supposed to be in and out. Just a two-day trip. We were just trying to get out of the rain."
"Clara," Damen said, reaching out. He didn't care about her flinching this time. He took her trembling hand in his, his grip firm, anchoring her to the present. "Lily is my daughter."
It wasn't a question, but Clara answered it anyway. She nodded, a small, defeated movement. "She's yours. She's six. Her birthday is in October."
Damen closed his eyes. The weight of seven lost years crushed down on him. The first steps, the first words, the scraped knees, the bedtime stories. All stolen from him by his own blood, and by the man currently driving his car. He had spent years building an empire of blood and money, believing he was empty inside, only to find out his heart had been walking around in a cheap beige coat, raising his daughter in hiding.
"I'm sorry," Clara choked out, trying to pull her hand away. "I wanted to tell you, Damen. But they said they would kill you too if you tried to protect us."
Damen opened his eyes. The grief was gone, replaced by a terrifying, absolute clarity. The monster inside him, the one he had spent his life trying to leash, was suddenly unchained, and it was starving.
"Nobody is going to kill you, Clara," Damen said, his voice terrifyingly calm. He released her hand and reached under his dark coat, his fingers brushing the cold steel of the Sig Sauer holstered at his ribs. "And you are never running again. You are mine. She is mine. I will turn the streets of this city red with the blood of anyone who looks at either of you the wrong way."
May you like
The SUV slowed down, pulling into the private, subterranean parking garage of Damen's fortified harbor penthouse. The heavy steel gates rolled shut behind them, locking them in.
Damen looked at the privacy screen. The game was about to change.
