Chapter 5 - Midnight Interrogation
|
I wrapped my arms tightly around my waist, suddenly acutely aware that I was still wearing my gray maid’s uniform while standing across from a man worth billions. The sheer magnetism that had drawn me to him at twenty-one was still there, only now it was sharpened by four years of ruthless survival and dark authority.
"You think I wanted to leave?" My voice trembled, rising slightly above a whisper so I wouldn't wake Sophie through the half-open bedroom door. "Damon, after your father’s car was bombed, you locked me out. I stood outside your penthouse gate in the pouring rain for four hours while your guards told me you weren't taking visitors!"
Damon’s jaw clenched hard. He crossed the distance between us in three long strides, stopping so close I could smell the familiar scent of cedarwood and rain on his skin.
"My uncle’s cartel allies were hunting everyone connected to the Vance name that week," he bit out, his dark brows drawing together. "I kept you away from the penthouse because there were snipers positioned on two separate rooftops across the street! I put two of my best men outside your NYU dorm to watch you from a distance until I could clean out the traitors inside my own boardroom."
I stared up at him in disbelief, my heart hammering against my ribs.
"Your men weren't the ones who found me at the dorm, Damon," I whispered.
He went completely still. "What did you just say?"
I walked over to the small canvas bagHarrison had brought up from my basement room, unzipped the hidden lining at the bottom, and pulled out a faded, water-stained manila envelope I had carried like a curse for four years. My fingers shook as I held it out to him.
Damon took the envelope and slid the contents out onto the palm of his hand. Inside were three high-resolution photographs taken through a telescopic lens. The first showed Damon standing on the balcony of his father’s funeral home with a red laser dot centered directly over his heart. The second showed me walking out of my university biochemistry lab. The third was a typed note on heavy ivory cardstock: Disappear before midnight, or you’ll watch the last Vance bleed out on the pavement tomorrow morning.
"It was slid under my dorm door the night I found out I was pregnant," I said, a cold sob catching in my throat. "The two guards you mentioned? I saw them slumped inside a black sedan down the block with silenced bullet holes through the windshield. Whoever sent that wasn't bluffing. I didn't have money, I didn't have power, and I was carrying your child. Leaving was the only bulletproof vest I could give you."
May you like
Damon stared down at the photographs, his breathing ragged and shallow. Slowly, he crushed the ivory note in his fist, his silver-hazel eyes blazing with a terrifying, murderous fury.
"Someone inside my own circle," he breathed darkly, before pulling me fiercely against his chest. "God forgive me, Elena. I spent four years thinking you walked away from me, while you were out there bleeding to keep me alive."
