Chapter 6 - BLOOD ON THE MARBLE
The drive back to the penthouse was coated in a heavy, charged silence.
The city lights smeared across the Maybach’s windows in streaks of gold and neon blue. Nicholas kept his fingers laced firmly through mine in the backseat, his thumb rhythmically stroking the back of my hand. Neither of us spoke, but the air between us crackled like a thunderstorm waiting to break.
When the private elevator doors opened into the penthouse foyer on the fifty-third floor, the silence was shattered by a low, mechanical alarm chirping from Marco’s security console.
Nicholas reacted in a fraction of a second.
He shoved me behind his broad back, his right hand instantly drawing a concealed Glock 19 from beneath his tuxedo jacket.
“Marco!” Nicholas barked.
No answer.
The penthouse was dark. The soft ambient lighting was completely offline, leaving the cavernous living room illuminated only by the cold, silvery moonlight pouring through the floor-to-ceiling glass.
Then, I smelled it: the sharp, metallic tang of fresh blood, mixed with cordite.
“Stay behind me,” Nicholas commanded in a lethal whisper, stepping forward smoothly, his weapon raised. “If I tell you to run, you take the emergency fire stairwell behind the pantry. Do not look back.”
“Nicholas—”
“Gabriella. Obey me.”
We moved into the grand corridor. Lying on the polished marble floor near the kitchen entrance was one of our security guards, unconscious, bleeding from a heavy blow to the head.
A shadow separated itself from the darkness near the wine cellar.
Muzzle flash.
The deafening roar of a suppressed gunshot shattered the glass vase beside my head, raining shards of crystal across the floor.
Nicholas fired twice in immediate succession. A man grunted in the shadows, crashing heavily against the stainless-steel prep table.
Before Nicholas could advance, two more figures in tactical gear lunged from the adjacent dining room. One tackled Nicholas to the ground, sending his firearm skidding across the polished floorboards.
“Nicholas!” I screamed.
The second assailant turned toward me, a combat knife glinting in his grip. He was fast, moving with the brutal efficiency of a trained mercenary. Roberto had sent a hit squad directly into the sanctuary.
The mercenary lunged for my arm, aiming to drag me down.
Survival instincts I didn't know I possessed took over. I didn't scream; I didn't cower. I grabbed a heavy brass candelabra from the console table beside me and swung it with all the force in my body.
The solid metal connected with the side of his skull with a sickening crack.
The man stumbled back, cursing in Italian, blood pouring from his hairline. He lunged again, but the delay gave Nicholas the seconds he needed.
Nicholas threw his attacker off him, snapped the man’s neck with a brutal, sickening twist of his hands, and launched himself across the room like a panther. He caught the mercenary attacking me from behind, driving him face-first into the solid marble island.
The man slumped to the floor, lifeless.
Silence slammed back down onto the penthouse, broken only by the sound of our ragged, heavy breathing.
Nicholas stood over the bodies, his tuxedo torn, blood splattered across his white shirt. His eyes swept the perimeter, scanning the dark corners, before whipping around to face me.
“Gabriella!”
He crossed the room in two strides, grabbing my shoulders, his hands frantically checking my arms, my neck, my face. “Are you hit? Did they cut you? Talk to me!”
“I’m fine,” I gasped, trembling as the adrenaline began to ebb away, leaving my knees weak. “I’m okay. Nicholas, you’re bleeding.”
A dark crimson stain was spreading across his left ribs where a blade had sliced through his jacket.
He ignored his wound entirely. Seeing that I was unharmed, the tension snapped inside him. With a low, ragged groan, Nicholas pulled me into his chest, wrapping his powerful arms around me so tightly I could feel the violent, frantic beating of his heart against my cheek.
“You’re safe,” he breathed into my hair, his voice raw with an emotion he could no longer conceal. “I have you. You’re safe.”
May you like
I buried my face in the crook of his neck, inhaling the scent of cedarwood, rain, and the faint metallic tang of his blood, wrapping my arms around his waist. In that dark, ruined penthouse, surrounded by death, I felt an impossible, terrifying truth bloom in my chest:
I was falling in love with a monster.
