Chapter 5 - Trapped in the Inner Circle
The kitchen was cleaned up within two hours, though the shattered glass and bullet holes in the pantry wall served as a grim, permanent reminder that the Marchetti estate was no longer a safe haven.
Up in the reinforced panic room suite on the master floor, Delia paced back and forth across the thick wool rug, her hands shaking as she clutched a mug of chamomile tea. The babies were sleeping again, exhausted by the sudden violence, resting peacefully in their reinforced steel cribs.
The heavy reinforced door clicked open, and Anton walked in.
His jacket was gone, his tie loosened, and there was a dark smear of dried blood across his right sleeve that didn't belong to him.
“Are they safe?” Delia asked immediately, her voice trembling.
“They are safe,” Anton said flatly, walking toward her. He stopped a foot away, his dark eyes scanning her face with fierce intensity. “Did they touch you? Were you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” she snapped, a sudden wave of anger washing over her shock. “I’m fine, Anton! But your enemies just shot up your kitchen while I was holding your children! You told me this house was a fortress! You told me nobody got in or out without your authorization!”
“And they didn't,” Anton said darkly. “Which means we have a leak. Someone on the inside gave them the security codes to the east courtyard.”
Delia stopped pacing. The reality of her situation settled over her like a lead blanket. She wasn't just a visitor anymore. She was trapped in the middle of a mafia war, hiding in a billionaire’s panic room, with three babies who called her Mama and a dangerous, magnetic mob boss who looked at her as if she were the only real thing left in his world.
“I want to go home,” she whispered, though even as she said it, she knew how hollow it sounded.
“You can’t,” Anton replied, his voice dropping into a low, uncompromising purr. He closed the remaining distance between them, lifting his hand to gently brush a stray lock of dark hair behind her ear. His fingers grazed her jawline, sending a violent, electric shiver straight down her spine. “If you walk out those gates tonight, Petrov’s men will be waiting for you. They know you were in this house. They know my sons said your name.”
“Petrov?” Delia gasped. “The Russian syndicate leader?”
“The same one Julian Vance was funneling money to,” Anton said, a grim smile touching the corner of his mouth. “You thought Julian acting alone was an accident? Petrov wanted our shipping routes, and when my wife refused to let him launder drug money through our docks... her car accident wasn't an accident, Delia. It was a warning.”
Tears welled in Delia’s eyes, but this time they were fueled by a cold, righteous fury. “And now he thinks he can come after your babies?”
“He thinks he can break me,” Anton murmured, his hand sliding down to cup her cheek, his thumb tracing the full curve of her lower lip. “He doesn't realize that the moment my sons spoke your name, my world stopped revolving around revenge. It started revolving around you.”
Delia’s breath hitched. She wanted to pull away. She wanted to tell him he was insane, that trauma-bonding was a terrible foundation for whatever heavy, consuming emotion was crackling in the air between them.
Instead, she leaned unconsciously into his palm.
May you like
And then, Anton leaned down and kissed her.
It wasn't a tentative, hesitant kiss. It was the desperate, starving collision of two people who had survived unimaginable loss and found a sudden, impossible anchor in the dark.
