Chapter 8 - The Public Claim
By dawn, the attack had been completely repelled.
Six mercenaries were bound and secured in the estate’s subterranean holding cells. The remaining four had fled into the snowy woods, where Dante’s perimeter guards were already hunting them down.
The sun rose over the Atlantic, casting a golden, brilliant light across the blood-stained marble floors of the manor’s grand foyer.
Dante stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows, pressing a phone to his ear while Marcus handed him a secure tablet.
“Vance is running out of moves,” Dante said, hanging up the phone and turning to face Mara, who was bandaging a minor scrape on her forearm at the kitchen island. “His financial backers are cutting ties. But the board of directors at Blackwood Industries is panicking. They see the chaos, and they’re calling an emergency public summit at City Hall this afternoon to vote on a hostile restructuring of my assets.”
Mara looked up from her gauze wrap. “They think you’re vulnerable because of the attack.”
“They think I’m dead,” Dante corrected, his jaw tightening. “And they think they can sweep your husband’s murder and the corporate corruption under the rug before the evening news.”
Mara stood up slowly, her dark eyes flashing with a dangerous, calculating light.
“Then we don’t hide,” Mara said quietly.
Dante narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”
“You want to cut the head off this snake once and for all?” Mara walked across the marble floor until she stood right in front of the syndicate king. “You don't fight them in the shadows. You drag them out into the sunlight where the whole city can watch.”
Dante stared at her, realization dawning, followed by a surge of profound, overwhelming respect.
“A public claim,” Dante murmured, testing the weight of the words.
“You claim the widow,” Mara said, her voice unwavering. “You stand in front of the city council, the press, and every corrupt board member, and you announce that Mara Hayes is under the absolute, unbreakable protection of the Blackwood dynasty. You tie our fates together so publicly that if anyone touches me or my daughter, the entire empire comes crashing down on their heads.”
Dante reached out, his warm, strong fingers gently cupping her chin, tilting her face up so she had to look directly into his storm-gray eyes.
May you like
“Do you have any idea what you’re asking, Mara?” Dante whispered, his voice thick with an intensity that had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with desire. “Once I claim you before the city, there is no going back. You become my queen. And my enemies become yours.”
“Try me,” Mara whispered back, without a single tremor of fear.
