Chapter 2 - The Blood LineThe dark inside the closet smelled of leather, expensive cologne, and the metallic tang of fear.
I crouched on the floor behind a rack of Elio’s suits, clutching the silver revolver with both hands until my knuckles turned white. The metal was heavy, cold, and entirely alien in my grip. Outside the heavy door, the sound of gunfire was muffled, but the heavy thuds of bodies hitting walls, the shattering of wood, and the deep, guttural shouts of men dying were painfully clear.
Every instinct told me to curl into a ball and wait for the nightmare to end. But the blood in my veins—the same blood that ran through Victor Moretti’s cold, calculating heart—refused to let me collapse.
Survive first. Feel later.
I took a deep, shuddering breath, resting the barrel of the revolver on my knees to steady my hands. The dress, once a fifty-thousand-dollar masterpiece of French lace and hand-sewn pearls, was ruined. The train was ripped, the bodice was stained with black soot, and my bare feet were bruised from the shattered glass on the bedroom floor.
Minute after agonizing minute dragged by. The gunfire slowly shifted from the upper hallway down toward the main courtyard. The heavy explosions of hand grenades shook the foundation of the house, rattling the wooden shoe racks inside the closet.
Then, silence fell.
It was not a peaceful quiet; it was the tense, suffocating stillness that follows a slaughter.
Footsteps approached the closet door. Heavy. Unhurried. Single.
I lifted the silver revolver, pointing it directly at the brass handle. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. My finger found the curved metal of the trigger.
"Geneva."
The voice was low, raspy, and thoroughly exhausted.
Elio.
The electronic lock beeped once, twice, and the heavy door swung open.
Light spilled into the closet, blinding me for a fraction of a second. As my eyes adjusted, the sight before me made the breath catch in my throat.
Elio stood in the doorway. His white shirt was torn open at the chest, covered in dark, blooming stains of crimson. A deep gash bled freely from his left temple, channeling a dark river of red down the side of his jaw and dripping onto his collar. His hands were dark with soot and blood, and in his right fist, he held his pistol, smoke still curling faintly from the barrel.
He looked down at the silver revolver pointed squarely at his chest.
Slowly, without a word, he reached out with his left hand, wrapped his blood-stained fingers around the barrel, and gently pressed it down, away from his heart.
"You held it right," he murmured, his voice threadbare. "Good girl."
He took one step toward me, his knees suddenly buckling.
"Elio!" I dropped the gun and caught him before he hit the floor.
The weight of him was immense. He collapsed against me, driving us both down onto the hardwood floor of the closet. His head came to rest against my shoulder, his heavy, ragged breaths hot against my skin. The smell of fresh blood was overwhelming now, metallic and thick.
"Where are you hit?" I demanded frantically, my hands flying across his shoulders, his chest, his sides. "Elio! Answer me!"
"Ribs," he grunted, wincing as my fingers found a torn section of his shirt along his left side. "Glancing shot... tore the flesh. Not deep."
"You're bleeding everywhere!" I pulled away slightly to look at him. His face was pale beneath the smudge of soot, his gray eyes shadowed with pain, but his gaze remained fixed on me with a terrifying, unyielding intensity.
"Is the house secure?" I asked, my voice shaking.
"Bruno... is clearing the lower floor," Elio rasped, reaching up with a heavy, blood-streaked hand to cup the back of my neck. His thumb brushed over my jawline, leaving a smear of red across my pale skin. "The Santoros... thought they could take us off guard on our wedding night. They thought I would be soft."
"Are they gone?"
"They’re dead," he said simply. The absolute finality in his voice sent a chill straight down my spine. "All of them."
A heavy silence settled over us. I sat on the floor of his closet, holding the most dangerous man in Chicago in my lap, his blood soaking through the silk of my wedding dress, staining us both permanently.
Footsteps hurried into the master suite, and Bruno appeared in the doorway, his own face bruised and streaked with gunpowder. He stopped dead when he saw Elio lying against me.
"Boss!" Bruno stepped forward, but Elio raised a hand, stopping him in his tracks.
"Get the medic up here," Elio ordered, his voice suddenly sharp again, asserting his authority even from the floor. "And call Victor Moretti."
Bruno blinked, glancing at me before looking back at Elio. "Your father-in-law? Boss, the Santoros used Moretti distribution routes to get through the outer gates. There’s no way they got this close without someone on the inside giving them the security codes."
The room seemed to drop ten degrees.
I froze, looking down at Elio. "What?"
Elio’s gray eyes slowly turned toward me, cold and unreadable once more. "Your father sold the access codes, Geneva."
"No," I whispered, shaking my head violently. "No. My father wanted this alliance! He gave me to you to protect his territory!"
"He gave you to me to distract me," Elio said coldly, though he did not pull away from my touch. "Victor knew if he killed me on our wedding night, the Viera organization would crumble into chaos before my cousins could consolidate power. He planned to sweep in, take over the South Side, and blame the Santoros for the massacre. You weren't the bridge, Geneva. You were the bait."
The realization hit me like a physical blow.
My father hadn't just sold me into a loveless marriage; he had dressed me in white, sent me into a war zone, and left me to die alongside the man he had forced me to marry. He had known the Santoros were coming. He had known bullets would rain down on the master suite.
He hadn't cared if I survived.
A cold, dark stillness bloomed inside my chest. The last remnants of the naive girl who had dreamed of art history and Italian sunlight died right there, suffocated by the smell of gunsmoke and her husband's blood.
"He tried to kill me too," I said quietly, my voice flat, empty of emotion.
Elio watched my face closely, watching the light leave my eyes, replaced by something hard, sharp, and unforgiving.
"Yes," Elio said softly. "He did."
I looked down at my hands. They were covered in Elio’s blood. My dress was ruined. My family was a lie. My entire life had been a series of gilded cages constructed by men who viewed women as collateral.
Slowly, I looked back up at Elio Viera.
"What are you going to do to him?" I asked.
Elio’s lips curved into a dark, cruel smile that held no humor—only the promise of absolute ruin.
"I’m going to tear his empire down piece by piece," Elio whispered, his hand tightening behind my neck, pulling me down until our foreheads touched. "And you, my quiet little bride... you are going to help me do it."
I didn't pull away. I didn't cry.
May you like
Instead, I leaned into his touch, feeling the heat of his skin, the beat of his heart, and the cold, terrifying promises binding us together far tighter than any vow spoken in a chapel ever could.
"Tell me what to do," I said.
