Chapter 4 - The Reluctant Guest
The silence in the study was entirely suffocating.
Claire felt the heavy mahogany desk dig into her lower back as she stumbled backward.
“That makes no sense,” Claire whispered, her mind racing.
“I was nineteen years old, I was just a baker.”
Lucia paced across the expensive Persian rug, rubbing her temples frantically.
“I saw the arsonist's face that night,” Lucia confessed.
Eleanor gasped loudly.
“You never told the police that, Lucia!”
“Because I was seven years old and absolutely terrified,” Lucia yelled back.
Vincent stepped forward, his massive frame demanding complete authority in the room.
“Who was it, Lucia?” Vincent demanded.
Lucia stopped pacing and looked nervously at Vanessa standing in the corner.
“It was someone wearing the Caldwell family crest on their jacket.”
Vanessa’s face lost all of its color instantly.
“You are lying!” Vanessa shrieked, stepping defensively toward the door.
Vincent turned his cold, predatory gaze slowly toward his fiancée.
“Is she lying, Vanessa?”
“My family is in shipping, Vincent, we don't burn down cheap bakeries in Chicago!”
Claire’s head was spinning violently from the impossible accusations.
She had spent two decades believing she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Now, this elite mafia family was telling her she was the actual target.
“I am leaving,” Claire announced, pushing past Vincent.
Vincent immediately grabbed her wrist, his grip gentle but absolutely immovable.
“If you walk out those doors, you will be dead before morning.”
“I survived on my own for thirty-nine years without your money or your guns,” Claire fired back.
Vincent stepped closer, his dark eyes dropping to her lips for a fraction of a second.
“You survived because they thought you burned to death in that building.”
Claire tried to pull her arm away, but his thumb softly stroked her racing pulse.
“Let me go, Mr. Moretti.”
“My name is Vincent.”
“You are my boss, and you are engaged to her,” Claire said, nodding toward Vanessa.
Vincent did not even glance in his fiancée's direction.
“The engagement is officially broken,” Vincent declared smoothly.
Vanessa let out a horrific scream of pure rage.
“You cannot do this to me, Vincent!”
“I just did,” he replied coldly.
“Take her back to her father's estate,” Vincent ordered two of his guards.
The massive enforcers grabbed Vanessa by both arms and dragged her kicking and screaming from the study.
Eleanor sighed heavily, falling back into her leather chair in complete exhaustion.
Lucia watched the entire scene with an unreadable, dark expression.
“I will set up the guest room in the east wing for Claire,” Lucia offered quietly.
Vincent finally released Claire’s wrist, stepping back to give her space.
“You will sleep in the master suite next to my room,” Vincent corrected his sister.
Claire crossed her arms defensively.
“I am not sleeping anywhere near you.”
Vincent smiled for the first time all evening, and it was a devastatingly handsome sight.
“It is the only room with bulletproof glass, Claire.”
Claire reluctantly followed an armed guard up the grand, sweeping staircase.
The master guest suite was larger than her entire lost apartment building.
She locked the heavy wooden door, finally allowing herself to cry.
She walked into the massive marble bathroom to wash the soot from her face.
She turned on the gold faucet and looked up into the expensive mirror.
May you like
Written across the glass in bright red lipstick was a terrifying message.
It read, "You should have burned with the rest of them."
