Chapter 6 - The Mafia Boss's Vulnerability
The private medical suite attached to Victor’s master bedroom was better equipped than a downtown urgent care clinic.
The red emergency lights cast an eerie glow across the stainless-steel counters and surgical trays. Victor dropped me gently onto the examination table, then grabbed a bottle of antiseptic and a clean cloth.
"You're bleeding," he said, his voice clipped and tight as he pointed a sharp finger toward my left forearm.
I looked down. A long, jagged scratch traced my skin from a stray piece of glass or a tactical knife during the scuffle in the hallway. It was stinging fiercely, but compared to the fact that someone had just tried to breach the mansion, it felt like nothing.
"I'm fine," I muttered, trying to pull my arm away.
"Sit still," Victor ordered, his grip on my wrist unyielding.
He dipped the cloth in antiseptic and pressed it gently against the cut. I hissed through my teeth, my shoulders tensing up.
"Sorry," he muttered, though his touch immediately softened, his thumb brushing over my skin with a tenderness that completely contradicted the blood-stained knuckles of his other hand. "You shouldn't have stayed in the hallway. You should have locked yourself in the panic room with Tommy."
"And let you face an armed hit squad alone?" I snapped back, glaring up into his dark eyes. "I'm not one of your hired thugs, Mr. Rinaldi. I'm part of this household now. And in this household, we don't leave people behind."
Victor stopped moving. He stared at me for a long, quiet moment, the tension between us shifting from combustible friction to something dangerously deep.
"Moretti," Victor whispered, his jaw clenching so hard a muscle twitched in his cheek. "He sent them. He thought attacking my home while my sons were sleeping would break me."
"Did it?" I asked softly.
Victor looked down at my hand, which was still resting in his large, scarred palm. Slowly, deliberately, he intertwined his fingers with mine.
"No," he said, his voice dropping an octave, thick with an emotion I couldn't quite name. "Because you were there. Because you didn't run."
The air in the room suddenly felt thin. The distant sound of sirens wailing outside the gates of the estate faded into the background, replaced by the heavy, rhythmic thumping of my own pulse.
Victor leaned in closer, his dark gaze dropping from my eyes to my lips. The distance between us evaporated until I could feel the heat radiating off his chest, smelling the expensive mix of sandalwood, gunpowder, and whiskey that followed him everywhere.
"Serena..." he murmured, saying my first name for the very first time. It sounded like a prayer and a warning wrapped into one.
Before I could answer—before I could pull away or lean in—the heavy steel door of the medical suite burst open.
Marcus stood in the doorway, panting heavily, holding an encrypted satellite phone.
"Boss," Marcus barked, before freezing in place as he saw the two of us standing inches apart. He cleared his throat loudly, looking away in sudden embarrassment. "Uh... boss. You're going to want to take this call. It's the family court commissioner in Manhattan. Something about an emergency custody hearing being moved up to Monday morning."
My blood ran instantly cold.
Monday morning. Less than thirty-six hours away.
May you like
I pulled my hand out of Victor's grip, stumbling backward off the examination table. My custody hearing for Lucia—the one that would decide whether my abusive ex-husband could strip my little girl away from me forever—was right around the corner.
And right now, standing in a mafia boss's secret medical bunker surrounded by dead hitmen, I realized I was completely, utterly screwed.
