Chapter 4 - The Sins of the PastWe didn't speak the entire car ride back to the penthouse.
The black Maybach glided through the rain-slicked streets of Manhattan in absolute silence. Nicholas sat in the corner of the leather back seat, staring out the tinted window, his jaw clenched so tightly I thought his teeth might shatter.
When the car slid into the private underground parking garage of the tower, Marco cut the engine, but neither of us moved.
“Go upstairs, Gabriella,” Nicholas said quietly, his eyes still fixed on the dashboard.
“What about you?” I asked, my hand resting on the door handle.
“I have things to handle.”
“Nicholas—”
“I said, go upstairs!” he snapped, his voice cracking with a sudden, violent frustration that wasn't directed at me, but at the chessboard he was trapped on.
I didn't argue. I pushed the door open, stepped out into the damp concrete garage, and took the private elevator up to the fifty-third floor.
But I didn't go to my room.
Instead, I waited in the quiet kitchen, pacing the cold marble floor, watching the clock tick past 2:00 AM, then 3:00 AM.
When the front door finally clicked open at 4:15 AM, I was standing in the foyer.
Nicholas walked in, looking like a man who had just survived a war. His tie was gone, his collar was torn open, and there was a dark, purpling bruise forming across the knuckles of his right hand.
He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw me standing there in the dim light.
“What are you still doing up?” he growled, walking past me toward the bar, pouring himself a double shot of straight bourbon without even offering me a glance.
“Waiting to see if you were coming back in a body bag,” I said sharply, following him into the living room. I crossed my arms over my chest. “You’re bleeding.”
Nicholas looked down at his bruised knuckles as if he had just noticed them. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing, and you know it!” I snapped, my exhaustion and fear finally boiling over into anger. I marched up to him, grabbed the glass out of his hand, and set it down on the coffee table before he could drink it. “You’re playing a game with men who will slice your throat the second you look away! Why are you doing this, Nicholas? Why keep me around to use as ammunition against Roberto? Why bring me into this insanity?”
Nicholas stared down at me, his chest heaving under his ruined shirt.
For a long moment, the anger in his eyes flickered, replaced by a profound, crushing exhaustion that made him look ten years older than his thirty-four years.
“Because,” he said, his voice cracking, “seeing you standing at my dinner table, acting like you were invisible… reminded me of someone I couldn't save.”
The air rushed out of my lungs.
“What?” I whispered.
Nicholas turned away, walking over to the glass wall, pressing his forehead against the cool pane as he looked out over the sleeping city.
“Ten years ago, before I took over my father’s empire, my sister lived in a city just like this,” he spoke quietly, the words dragging out of him like teeth being pulled. “She worked as a maid in a hotel downtown. She thought she was safe because she kept her head down. She thought if she didn't bother anyone, the wolves wouldn't notice her.”
A shiver raced down my spine.
“One of Roberto’s uncles noticed her,” Nicholas continued, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. “She saw something she shouldn't have in one of the VIP suites. They didn't just kill her, Gabriella. They made it look like an accident. And I was too weak, too young, too blind to stop it.”
He turned back to face me, his dark eyes shining with unshed tears—a vulnerability he had never, ever shown to the world.
“When Roberto looked at you at my table, laughing like you were just another piece of meat he could collect… it felt like watching them come for her all over again,” Nicholas said, stepping closer until he was towering over me. “I didn't claim you to be possessive. I claimed you because the moment I let anyone think you don't belong to me, they’ll try to destroy you to get to my heart.”
My breath hitched. The walls I had built around my heart—years of survival, cynicism, and cold self-reliance—crumbled into dust.
I reached out, my fingers gently touching the bruised knuckles of his right hand.
May you like
Nicholas flinched, then slowly, hesitantly, turned his hand over and laced his fingers through mine.
“You’re not invisible anymore, Gabriella,” he whispered, leaning down until his forehead rested against mine. “You’re mine. And I’ll burn this entire city to ash before I let anyone touch you.”
