Chapter 5 - Betrayal in the Bloodline
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Upstairs in the nursery suite, I had finally coaxed Sophie to sleep under a heavy fleece blanket.
She clutched a framed photograph of her mother against her chest, her soft breaths finally steady.
I sat on the velvet armchair by the window, keeping watch over the long driveway below.
Every muscle in my body ached, but the thought of closing my eyes felt impossible.
A soft tap sounded at the heavy wooden door, followed by a low, familiar voice.
“Hannah, it’s Silas. Open the door.”
I unlocked the brass deadbolt immediately and stepped back into the room.
Silas stepped across the threshold, his frame filling the doorway, his eyes dark with exhaustion and sorrow.
He looked toward the bed where Sophie lay sleeping, his expression softening in a way that made him look human.
“How is she?” he asked quietly, keeping his voice below a whisper.
“She cried until her head hurt, Mr. Rourke, but she finally rested,” I answered softly.
“She told me she was afraid you would hate her for making a scene at the dinner table.”
Silas looked as though someone had driven a knife between his ribs.
“I spent three years chasing ghost ships and rival gangs, searching for who took Elena,” he murmured.
“And all that time, the poison was eating dinner at my own table.”
He pulled a thick leather envelope from his inner pocket and placed it on the vanity table.
“What is this, sir?” I asked.
“Your son’s private academy tuition is paid in full for the next six years, Hannah.”
My breath caught in my throat, and my hand flew to my mouth in disbelief.
“Mr. Rourke, I cannot accept this, I was only doing what any decent person would do—”
“You did what twenty men armed with automatic rifles failed to do,” Silas interrupted firmly.
“You stood between my child and a viper while everyone else looked down at their plates.”
“In this house, loyalty to my daughter is the only currency that matters.”
Suddenly, the mansion’s perimeter alarms shrieked with a deafening wail.
Red security strobes flashed through the heavy velvet curtains, bathing the room in crimson light.
Sophie jolted awake in the bed, screaming in terror and reaching out blindly with both arms.
I threw myself across the bed, shielding her body with my own as Silas drew a semi-automatic handgun from his waistband.
The radio on his shoulder strap crackled with Dominic’s panicked voice.
“Boss! Julian breached the west wing security office! He’s trying to wipe the server backups and he’s armed!”
Silas’s jaw tightened into a line of pure steel.
“Stay on this bed, Hannah,” Silas commanded without looking back.
May you like
“Bolt the door behind me and do not open it for anyone who doesn't use the code ‘Wildflower.’”
Before I could answer, he vanished into the corridor, the heavy door slamming shut behind him.
