Chapter 2 - The Fire in QueensThe private floor of Manhattan General Hospital was locked down tighter than a fortress. Armed men loyal only to Roman Kane guarded every elevator, stairwell, and window. Inside the master suite, the rhythmic beep of the fetal monitor was the only sound breaking the heavy silence.
Bianca lay in the vast hospital bed, wrapped in warm, sterile blankets. IV lines fed fluids and antibiotics into her veins. Her head was neatly bandaged where the cuts had been treated, and her short, jaggedly cut hair had been gently washed by nurses under Roman’s watchful, obsessive eye.
Roman hadn't slept for thirty-six hours. He sat in a chair beside her bed, his tuxedo jacket discarded, his dress shirt unbuttoned at the collar, holding her small, pale hand against his cheek.
Suddenly, Bianca’s fingers twitched. Her dark eyelashes fluttered, and she let out a soft groan.
"Bianca," Roman was instantly on his knees beside the bed, pressing his lips to her knuckles. "I'm here. Mia cara, I'm right here."
She blinked against the soft light, her mind slowly piecing together the surroundings. She felt the heavy warmth of the blankets, the sting of the IV in her arm, and then, instinctively, her hand flew to her swollen belly.
"The baby..." she panicked, her voice hoarse and raspy. "Roman, the baby—"
"She's fine. She's strong, just like her mother," Roman reassured her quickly, placing his large palm over her hand on her stomach. "The doctor checked her. Her heart rate is strong. She survived the cold, Bianca. You saved her."
A wave of intense relief washed over Bianca, tears spilling down her pale cheeks. But as she raised her other hand to wipe her eyes, her fingers brushed against the rough, short stubble on her head. The memory returned like a physical strike—Victoria's cold voice, the heavy hands holding her shoulders down, the snip-snip of the heavy shears, and the cruel laughter of the Kane elite as her dark locks fell onto the floor like garbage.
Her tears stopped. Her expression hardened into something forged in iron.
Roman saw the change in her eyes and felt a knot form in his stomach. "Bianca... I am so sorry. I should have protected you. I should never have left for Chicago yesterday. I promise you, my mother will spend the rest of her life in isolation. I will destroy everything she holds dear."
"No," Bianca said quietly.
Roman blinked, surprised. "What?"
Bianca sat up slowly, pushing the pillows behind her back. Despite her pale skin and shaved head, she looked more formidable than any crime lord or billionaire Roman had ever faced.
"Your mother thinks I am a weak girl from Queens who got lucky," Bianca said, her voice dropping to a fierce, steady tone. "She thinks that because my father abandoned us and my mother worked herself to the bone in a laundry, I don't know how power works. She cut my hair to strip away my dignity. She threw me out in the rain expecting me to beg."
She looked directly into Roman’s eyes, her gaze locked on his. "I don't want you to just punish her, Roman. I want to tear down the entire system that allowed her to think she owned me."
A slow, dark smile crept onto Roman’s lips—the smile of a man recognizing his true equal. "Tell me what you need."
"My mother taught me one thing about rich people when she washed their expensive clothes," Bianca said, leaning in. "They look clean on the outside, but their dirt is deeply embedded in the seams. Victoria Kane didn't build the Kane dynasty; your father did. And Victoria has been hiding secrets to keep control of the board since he died."
Bianca pointed toward the bedside table where her personal bag—retrieved from her old apartment—lay. "Before I agreed to marry you, Roman, I didn't just search your name on Google. I hired an independent auditor. I ran a background check on Kane Capital’s offshore holding accounts in the Cayman Islands. I wanted to make sure your family wasn't going to drag my life into federal prison."
Roman stared at her, genuinely stunned. "You audited my family before our second date?"
"I'm from Queens, Roman. Trust is earned, not given," she said coolly. "And what I found was that Victoria has been embezzling millions from the family charitable trust to pay off blackmailers who know the truth about your father's real will."
Roman’s eyes darkened. "What truth?"
"Your father left fifty-one percent of the voting shares not to Victoria, and not to the board... but to you, outright, upon the birth of your first legitimate child," Bianca revealed, a fierce, triumph-filled gleam in her eyes. "She humiliated me and tried to force me into signing a custody surrender because the moment our daughter is born, Victoria loses every ounce of legal power she has over Kane Capital."
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Roman absorbed the information, his blood running hot with realization. The cruelty wasn't just snobbery; it was desperate, terrified panic.
"We don't wait for her to attack again," Bianca declared, wrapping her fingers around Roman’s hand with vice-like strength. "We release the audit to the federal prosecutors, call an emergency board meeting, and take the empire out from under her feet before I go into labor."
