“Excuse me?” Celeste Marlowe’s voice cracked through the silence of St. Cordova, sharp enough to cut, yet trembling at the edges.

“Excuse me?” Celeste Marlowe’s voice cracked through the silence of St. Cordova, sharp enough to cut, yet trembling at the edges. “Do you have any idea who I am? She spilled a four-hundred-dollar bottle of vintage Pinot Noir across custom Italian silk! She tripped over her own feet!”

Damon Cross did not raise his voice. He didn't need to. In a room built on the quiet, terrifying weight of real power, his silence was louder than her panic.

“I know exactly who you are, Celeste,” Damon said, his eyes black as cold iron. “You are Walter Marlowe’s daughter, begging for a lifeline because your family’s real estate portfolio is drowning in seventy million dollars of bad debt. And you just put your hands on my family.”

Celeste’s face drained of every drop of color. Her lips parted, but no sound came out.

The two men in dark suits stepped up on either side of her. Neither touched her—they didn't have to. The mere shadow of their presence was enough.

“Out,” Damon said softly. “Before I decide to buy your father’s debt tonight and throw him into the street by morning.”

Celeste took two hasty, humiliated steps backward, her high heels clicking loudly against the marble. She cast one last venomous glance at the woman kneeling on the floor before turning on her heel and marching out into the rain, flanked by Damon’s men.

The dining room remained dead quiet. Patrons stared into their plates. The maître d' stood frozen near the host stand, wiping cold sweat from his forehead.

Damon turned his back on the crowd and crouched down beside Adriana once more.

She was trembling violently, her chest heaving as she held Eli’s watch against her bump. The sharp edges of broken glass surrounded her, but she didn't seem to notice the danger. Her eyes were fixed entirely on Damon’s face, wide with a mixture of terror, grief, and profound shame.

“Adriana,” Damon said, his voice dropping into a tender, low register that no one in Boston had heard in half a decade. “Let me help you up.”

“No,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “Damon, please... you shouldn't be here. You shouldn't look at me.”

“Eli died saving my life,” Damon replied, reaching out slowly, giving her time to pull away if she wanted to. “I searched every state from Maine to Florida for you after the funeral. You vanished. His apartment was emptied. Your bakery was sold. I thought...” He swallowed, a rare lump forming in his throat. “I thought they had taken you too.”

“I had to hide,” she choked out, tears finally breaking free and spilling over her lower lashes, washing over the red imprint of Celeste's hand on her skin. “If they found me... if they knew about the baby...”

Damon’s gaze drifted down to her stomach, and a cold shock rolled through his veins. Six months. Eli had been gone for six months.

“He didn't know, did he?” Damon asked quietly.

Adriana shook her head, a heartbroken sob escaping her lips. “I found out three days after the explosion. Three days after we put him in the ground. He died thinking he was leaving behind nothing.”

Damon felt a dark, ancient rage flare up inside his chest, but he forced it down, burying it deep beneath a calm exterior. He gently slipped his arms beneath her back and knees, lifting her effortlessly out of the sea of shattered glass.

Adriana let out a small gasp, reflexively clutching at his shoulders before remembering who he was, stiffening in his arms.

“My shift...” she stammered weaky, looking back toward the kitchen doors. “I have to finish my shift. I need the cash...”

“Your shift is over,” Damon said smoothly, carrying her past the silent tables toward the private back office. “Annie Vale doesn't work here anymore.”

He kicked open the door to his private suite—a dark, wood-paneled room lined with leather books and private security monitors—and set her down gently on the plush velvet sofa. He stepped over to a small side fridge, pulled out a clean towel and a bottle of mineral water, and wet the cloth.

He knelt before her again, lifting the damp towel to her cheek.

Adriana flinched slightly at the cold touch, but Damon’s hand was remarkably steady, dabbing gently at the swelling spot where Celeste’s diamond rings had scratched her skin.

“Why St. Cordova, Adriana?” Damon asked, his dark eyes searching hers. “Out of all the places in New England, why work in a restaurant I frequent?”

“Because it was the last place anyone would look for Eli Voss’s widow,” she whispered, holding the steel watch tight against her heart. “Everyone knows you own this place. Everyone knows you run the East Coast from that corner table. The men who killed Eli... the men who blew up his car... they thought I would run to you for protection.”

She looked up, her amber eyes burning with frantic honesty.

“So I did the opposite. I stayed close to the fire where it was too bright for them to see me. I lived in a basement apartment in Southie. I took cash under the table. I just needed to survive long enough to have his child.”

Damon paused, the wet towel hovering in the air.

“Who told you to run from me, Adriana?”