Chapter 2 - The Contract in Blood and Gold — Three Million Reasons to Never Look Back
The ride along Lake Shore Drive was enveloped in absolute silence.
Nora sat in the leather passenger seat of Dante’s armored Maybach, watching the
city lights blur against the dark waters of Lake Michigan. In the front, a
silent driver with cauliflower ears maneuvered through the rain-slicked streets,
while Dante sat beside her, working through encrypted files on a tablet.
He had not touched her. He had not made a single suggestive remark. He had
handed her his wool coat the moment they stepped out of the club, wrapping her
cold shoulders in heavy, cedar-scented warmth.
“There are rules in my house,” Dante said without looking up from his screen.
Nora turned to him. “I expected rules.”
“Rule number one: You do not enter my private office on the third floor unless
invited. Rule number two: You do not leave the estate perimeter without an armed
escort. My enemies do not care that you were traded tonight; to them, anyone
inside my gate is a target.”
“And rule number three?”
Dante closed his tablet and turned his full attention toward her.
“Rule number three: My children are sacred. Matteo is twelve. He carries the
weight of a grown man and trusts no one. Luca and Sofia are nine-year-old twins;
Luca acts out with anger, and Sofia hides behind silence. And Mia is four. She
was in the car when the bomb went off. She hasn't spoken a word in twenty-four
months.”
Nora felt a sudden, deep ache in her chest. The pain had nothing to do with her
own scars; it was the instinctual sorrow of a woman who understood the terror of
childhood isolation.
“Why me, Dante?” Nora asked, using his first name for the first time. “You could
have hired the best nannies in the world. You could have married any high-born
mafia daughter in the country.”
“Nannies leave when the shooting starts,” Dante replied darkly. “And mafia
daughters want power, diamonds, and their own blood on the throne. They would
see my children as obstacles to their future sons.”
He reached over and tapped the manila folder resting on the console between
them—her private medical records from the clinic.
“Your parents thought this made you worthless,” Dante said softly. “To me, it
makes you safe. You have no reason to play dynastic games with my children's
lives. You are the only person entering that house who has nothing to gain from
their destruction.”
“I’m not a monster,” Nora said quietly. “I won’t hurt them.”
“If I thought you would hurt them,” Dante said, his eyes locking onto hers with
chilling certainty, “you would still be sitting at that table in the Continental
Club.”
The Maybach slowed as it approached massive, wrought-iron gates set into
ten-foot stone walls topped with razor wire and surveillance cameras. The gates
groaned open, revealing a sprawling Gothic stone mansion perched on a cliff
overlooking the roaring lake.
May you like
As the car pulled up to the grand front steps, Dante turned to her once more.
“Welcome to purgatory, Nora Bellamy,” he murmured. “Let’s see if you have the
courage to make it a home.”
