Chapter 2 - THE VELVET TRAP

The vast, empty train terminal felt like a tomb.

Julian limped closer, his gun perfectly steady. The neon lights buzzed overhead, casting long, menacing shadows across the polished marble floor.

"You used my sister," Sienna said, her voice shaking with a potent mix of terror and absolute rage. "You paid her to hide Leo so Damien wouldn't know Isabella had a child with a rival."

"Your sister was a poor, desperate woman who needed cash. Just like you," Julian sneered, holding out his free hand. "The book, Sienna. Now."

Answer: Leo is Julian and Isabella's child. Open: How did Damien survive the hallway fight, and where is he?

Sienna clutched the heavy leather ledger to her chest. If she gave it to Julian, he would kill her instantly. He couldn't leave a witness who knew the truth about Leo's parentage.

"If you kill me, Damien will hunt you to the ends of the earth," Sienna warned, backing away slowly.

Julian laughed, a harsh, grating sound. "Damien is bleeding out in your hallway. I put a knife in his ribs before I left him. The great Damien Cross died in a slum. Poetic, isn't it?"

Sienna’s heart shattered. Damien. The terrifying, ruthless man who had risked everything to save a waitress and a little boy. He couldn't be dead. He promised her he wouldn't die.

"Give me the book!" Julian roared, stepping forward and pressing the barrel of the gun against her forehead.

Sienna closed her eyes. She thought of Leo, safe with Marcus. She thought of the neon blue ink on the black glass table. She was just a waitress, but she wasn't going to die a coward.

She raised the heavy leather book.

But she didn't hand it to him. With a feral scream, Sienna violently swung the thick, heavy ledger directly into Julian’s face.

The heavy spine cracked against his broken nose. Julian shrieked in pain, stumbling backward, his gun firing blindly into the air. The gunshot echoed like a cannon blast through the empty station.

Sienna didn't wait. She turned and sprinted down the platform, toward the darkened, empty subway tunnels.

"You stupid bitch!" Julian screamed, recovering quickly. He raised his gun, tracking her desperate sprint.

BANG.

Sienna squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the burning impact of the bullet.

It never came.

Instead, Julian gasped. The gun slipped from his hand, clattering onto the marble floor.

Sienna stopped, turning around slowly.

Standing fifty feet behind Julian, bleeding heavily from a vicious knife wound in his side, was Damien Cross. He was holding a smoking pistol.

Julian fell to his knees, clutching his shoulder where Damien’s bullet had shattered his collarbone.

Damien walked slowly toward the fallen traitor. His velvet jacket was ruined, his face pale from blood loss, but his eyes burned with the fire of a king defending his crown.

"You forgot the first rule of an assassination, Julian," Damien murmured, his voice echoing in the silence. "Always confirm the kill."

Damien raised his gun, aiming it at Julian’s head.

"Wait!" Julian begged, coughing up blood. "Damien, wait! If you kill me, you’ll never find the boy! I have him!"

Damien paused. He looked at Sienna, who was holding the ledger, her eyes wide with shock.

Reversal.

Julian didn't have the boy.

Sienna stepped forward, pulling the burner phone Damien had given her mother from her pocket. She dialed a number on speaker.

"Marcus," Sienna said into the phone. "Is Leo safe?"

"Safe and sound, Miss Hayes," Marcus’s deep voice replied through the speaker. "He’s asleep on the couch at the safe house."

Julian’s face went pale. His entire leverage was gone.

"You lose, Julian," Damien said softly.

He didn't pull the trigger. Instead, the wail of police sirens echoed from outside the station. The gunshot had drawn the authorities.

"I don't kill dogs," Damien said, lowering his weapon. "I put them in cages."

He turned to Sienna, holding out his hand. "Come here, waitress."

Sienna ran to him, throwing her arms around his waist, burying her face in his uninjured shoulder. He was freezing, his body trembling from the blood loss, but his massive arm wrapped around her, holding her tighter than she had ever been held.

"I thought you were dead," she sobbed into his coat.

"It takes more than a Valenti to kill me," Damien whispered, resting his chin on the top of her head.