Chapter 2 - The Fire at WhitewoodThe study was so quiet that the roaring of the wind outside the balcony sounded like a distant freight train.
Dominic stared at her back, his breath catching in his throat. The cold, calculated mafia don who had systematically dismantled the Martin empire felt as though the floor had vanished beneath his boots.
“Who did this?” Dominic whispered, his voice losing its customary authority, replaced by a dark, dangerous disbelief.
Avery pulled her shoulders forward, trying desperately to yank the torn collar back up to her throat. Her hands were shaking. The cold composure she had worn like armor for three years had cracked, leaving behind raw, exposed agony.
“Your father’s men,” Avery said, her voice trembling with suppressed fury. “Four years ago. Before the war even officially started. They didn't want my father’s warehouses. They wanted to send a message. They locked me inside the Whitewood estate library and set it on fire.”
Dominic staggered back half a step. “That... that was an electrical accident. The fire department report said—”
“The fire department report was written by a chief on your father’s payroll!” Avery shouted, turning around to face him, tears finally spilling over her lashes, hot and unbidden. “My mother died in that fire trying to pull me out! I spent eight months in a burn unit while your family laughed over our ruined shipping routes!”
Dominic stared at her, the ground shifting beneath his feet.
For three years, he had operated under a single, absolute dogma: The Martins killed my older sister in a carbombing. That was the justification for every bullet, every fire, every ruined life. His father, Salvatore Ramos, had sworn it on a Bible.
And yet, looking at Avery’s ruined skin, looking at the agonizing physical cost of a war she never asked to fight, a sickening realization began to form in the back of his mind.
If his father had lied about the fire... what else had he lied about?
“Thomas,” Dominic said slowly, a cold sweat breaking out across his forehead. “Your brother... he knew?”
“Thomas didn't care about anything except his gambling debts and his sports cars,” Avery spat bitterly, wiping a tear from her cheek. “When your father’s men burned me, Thomas cut a deal with them to keep half our properties safe. He traded me to you to save his own skin. He didn't offer a hostage. He sold a corpse.”
Dominic reached out slowly, his large hand hovering inches from her scarred shoulder, terrified to touch her, terrified not to.
“Avery...”
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“Don't touch me,” she whispered, stepping back until her spine pressed against the cold stone of the fireplace. “You wanted a Martin princess to punish for a war you thought my family started. Well, you won. You have the empire. You have the bride. Now leave me alone.”
Dominic stood rooted to the spot. The victory he had spent a decade bleeding for suddenly tasted like ash.
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