Chapter 10 - THE FINAL GAMBIT
Nicholas didn't lower his weapon, but his eyes flicked momentarily toward the gangplank.
I stepped onto the yacht, my coat drenched in rain, my boots making dull thuds against the wet fiberglass deck. Marco stood right behind me, an umbrella held over my head, but I walked past it, stepping directly into the storm.
Roberto looked at me through his blood-soaked bangs, a pathetic, trembling shadow of the arrogant man who had touched my hand at the dinner table.
“Gabriella...” Roberto begged, his voice cracking. “Tell him. You’re a normal girl. You aren't one of these butchers. Don't let him murder me in cold blood.”
I stopped beside Nicholas. I looked down at Roberto Ferraro.
I remembered his slimy smile, his predatory gaze, the way he had spoken about women like cattle to be traded and conquered. I remembered the bullet that had shattered the vase inches from my skull, and the blood Nicholas had bled onto the bathroom floor.
“You called me a centerpiece, Signor Ferraro,” I said, my voice steady, ringing out over the sound of the crashing waves. “You thought I was weak because I held a serving tray. But in this city, power isn't about the gun in your hand. It’s about knowing who holds the true strength.”
I turned to Nicholas, resting my hand gently over his knuckles wrapped around the grip of the gun.
“He isn't worth your freedom, Nicholas,” I said softly. “Look at the harbor.”
Through the thick rain, flashing red and blue lights illuminated the water. Three federal cutter boats and four NYPD patrol cruisers were closing in on the marina, their sirens wailing through the night.
Nicholas looked at me, understanding flashing in his eyes.
“You called the Feds?” Roberto stammered, horrified.
“I had Marco send the unencrypted flight manifests and wire transfer records directly to the United States Attorney’s office twenty minutes ago,” I said calmly. “You won't die tonight, Roberto. You will spend the rest of your natural life in a supermax facility in Florence, Colorado, watching your family name get erased from every record in this country.”
Roberto’s face went completely pale. For a man of his pride, a cage was a thousand times worse than a bullet.
Nicholas lowered his weapon, a slow, breathtaking smile spreading across his face. He wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me against his side as the federal agents stormed the docks, weapons drawn.
“Hands where we can see them!” the federal tactical commander screamed over a megaphone.
Nicholas calmly raised his badge—the diplomatic clearance and state developer immunity he had maintained for years—while pointing down at Roberto’s bleeding form.
“The fugitive you’ve been chasing for five years is all yours, Officer,” Nicholas called back with effortless charm. “He was attempting to flee jurisdiction. We simply detained him for you.”
As the agents swarmed the yacht, cuffing Roberto and dragging him away screaming in curses, Nicholas turned me in his arms.
The rain poured over us, soaking our clothes, but his body was a furnace against mine. He framed my face in his large, warm hands, his dark eyes filled with absolute reverence.
“You dismantled my greatest enemy without firing a single shot,” Nicholas whispered, his voice trembling with an emotion so vast it took my breath away. “You are the most magnificent creature I have ever seen.”
May you like
“I told you,” I whispered back, smiling through the rain. “I don't break easily.”
Nicholas crushed his mouth against mine, kissing me with a fierce, untamed devotion that claimed my soul completely beneath the flashing lights and the roaring city skies.
