Chapter 5 - THE PROTECTION MARRIAGEBy the time we reached Kalas House, my hands were numb.
Not from the cold.
From the sentence the dying man had left behind.
The bride is already chosen.
Dr. Shaw examined me again. The bleeding had stopped, but the baby’s heartbeat was irregular enough to keep her silent for several minutes. Damon stood outside the room while the ultrasound technician worked, visible through the open doorway like a dark figure carved from stone.
I watched the monitor.
The baby’s tiny heart flashed across the screen.
Fast.
Furious.
Alive.
I pressed my palm against the curve of my stomach.
“He’s fighting,” I whispered.
Dr. Shaw glanced at me. “He is.”
“He?”
She smiled faintly. “Unless you wanted a surprise.”
I laughed once, and the laugh turned into a sob.
For six months, I had refused to imagine the future. I bought only what I needed for the next week. I slept with my shoes beside the bed. I chose motels with two exits. I never allowed myself to think about a crib, a name, or the face of the child who had been kicking beneath my ribs.
Now a stranger had told me I was carrying a boy.
And the father’s brother stood outside the door with a gunshot wound and the power to turn the entire city upside down.
When the doctor left, Damon entered.
“The baby is fine,” I said before he could ask.
His shoulders lowered slightly.
“Good.”
“You can stop looking like you’re about to kill the furniture.”
“I’m considering the walls.”
I pulled the blanket higher. “Miriam told you about the ledger.”
“Miriam is gone.”
I sat up. “Gone where?”
“She left before we returned.”
“You let her leave?”
“I had other problems.”
“She knows who killed Eli.”
“She knows pieces.”
“Then find the rest.”
His eyes met mine. “I intend to.”
“Why are you still here?”
“Because someone attacked you twice tonight.”
“That explains the guards.”
“It explains the house.”
“Then what doesn’t it explain?”
Damon reached into his coat and removed the brass key. He set it on the bedside table.
“The Marquetti hotel vault can only be opened by two people.”
“Who?”
“The person carrying the key and a blood relative of the Kalas family.”
“You.”
“Me.”
“So take the key and open it.”
“I cannot open it alone.”
“Why not?”
“The lock requires a second component.”
“What component?”
“The watch.”
I stared at him.
“It requires both,” he continued. “The key enters the outer mechanism. The watch activates the inner one.”
“Then we go together.”
“Not yet.”
“Why?”
“Because every person who has tried to reach that vault has died.”
“You sound worried.”
“I sound informed.”
“You sound like you’re planning to lock me here.”
“I am.”
I threw the nearest pillow at him.
He caught it without effort.
“You cannot keep me prisoner.”
“I can keep you protected.”
“Those are not the same thing.”
“They are tonight.”
I pushed myself off the bed. Pain pulled across my lower back, but I forced myself upright. Damon moved toward me. I lifted my hand.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
“You don’t get to rescue me, interrogate me, take me to your house, and then decide my life belongs to you.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you acting like a jailer?”
His voice lowered. “Because I buried one brother already.”
The anger in my chest faltered.
“You think if you control every door, every car, every person near me, Eli comes back?”
“No.”
“Then what are you protecting?”
His eyes dropped to my stomach.
“The only part of him that is still alive.”
The words were quiet.
Too quiet.
I sat back down.
Damon looked away first.
“There is another option,” he said.
“I’m listening.”
“You and the baby receive full protection under the Kalas family. No one can subpoena your location. No one can access medical records. No one can force you into custody.”
“And the cost?”
“You marry me.”
The room went silent.
I blinked. “What?”
“A legal marriage gives you immediate protection. It places you inside the family’s security structure. It makes any attempt to take you or the child an attack on me, not a missing waitress no one cares about.”
“You want to marry me?”
“I want to keep you alive.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the only answer I have.”
I stood again, slower this time. “You hated Eli.”
“I never hated him.”
“You believed he betrayed you.”
“I believed he chose someone else over me.”
“He chose his wife.”
“He chose you because he loved you.”
“And you want to marry me because you loved him?”
Damon’s expression hardened. “No.”
The single word carried more force than a shout.
“Then why?”
“Because I have seen what happens to people who stand alone against men like Marcel Marquetti.”
“You are one of those men.”
“I am worse.”
“At least you’re honest.”
“I am also the only man in Boston powerful enough to keep them from taking your child.”
The baby kicked again.
I placed my hand over the movement.
Eli had told me not to go to Damon.
But Eli had also given me the only thing that could lead us to the truth.
Maybe the warning had never been about Damon.
Maybe it had been about whoever stood beside him.
“When?” I asked.
Damon’s attention returned to me. “What?”
“The marriage.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Too soon.”
“The city already knows you are under my protection. If we wait, the Marquettis will move.”
“You really plan everything, don’t you?”
“I try.”
“Then plan for me to say no.”
“I did.”
“And?”
“I planned to ask again.”
Despite myself, I almost smiled.
He noticed.
His gaze fell to my mouth for a fraction of a second.
The air changed.
I looked away.
“I’ll marry you for protection,” I said. “But I will not become your property.”
“You could never be my property.”
“Why?”
His eyes held mine.
“Because property doesn’t have the power to destroy a man’s entire world by throwing a pillow at him.”
The next morning, Boston woke to the news that Damon Kalas had married the pregnant waitress from St. Cordova.
But before the ceremony could begin, a courier delivered a white envelope to my room.
Inside was a single photograph.
Eli stood beside me on our wedding day, smiling at the camera.
Across my face, someone had drawn a black X.
May you like
On the back, six words waited in red ink.
“THE BABY DIES AFTER THE VOWS.”
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