Chapter 3 - The Broken FortressThe heavy oak door of my River North loft didn't just open; it splintered inward with a deafening crash as the deadbolt sheared completely through the drywall.
I stumbled backward against the kitchen counter, my fingers closing around a heavy ceramic mug, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
Through the cloud of drywall dust stepped Luke Morgan.
He looked terrifying. His bespoke charcoal suit was rumpled, his tie torn away, and his sleeves rolled up to his forearms, revealing taut, corded muscle. His dark eyes were bloodshot, blazing with a feral, uncontrollable rage that had nothing to do with corporate boardrooms and everything to do with absolute primal fury.
Behind him stood Dante, his chief enforcer, holding a silenced submachine gun and scanning the corners of the loft with lethal precision.
“Put the mug down, Sophia,” Luke commanded, his voice a low, gravelly growl that vibrated through the floorboards.
“Stay back!” I yelled, my voice shaking despite my best efforts to sound brave. I kept one hand protectively pressed against my lower abdomen, shielding my secret from the storm walking toward me. “Don't you dare touch me, Luke! We’re getting a divorce! The papers are filed!”
Luke didn't stop. He crossed the loft in three massive strides, ignoring my warning entirely. He closed the distance between us, reached out, and snatched the ceramic mug right out of my hand, setting it gently on the counter before gripping my upper arms.
His touch was surprisingly steady, though his hands were trembling slightly.
“Your apartment was watched twenty minutes after you left it,” Luke said, his voice dropping into a terrifyingly calm register. “And twenty minutes ago, someone broke into the secure server room at Chicago Memorial Hospital and wiped Dr. Elena Morgan’s terminal.”
My breath caught in my throat. The room spun. “Elena... they took her.”
“My sister is currently missing,” Luke snarled, his grip tightening just enough to bruise. “And you are sitting here playing games with divorce papers while someone is actively hunting down everyone connected to my family.”
“Your family?” I laughed hysterically, tears finally spilling over my lashes. “Your mother spent yesterday afternoon laughing with Vanessa about how I’m a nobody! Your precious inner circle has been poisoning my coffee and tampering with my vitamins for months! And you come crashing into my home acting like my protector? Where were you, Luke? You were sipping wine with your first love while your family treated me like garbage!”
Luke froze. The overwhelming rage in his eyes flickered, momentarily replaced by stark, crushing incomprehension.
“What did you just say?” he whispered.
“I said your house is a den of vipers!” I cried, shoving my hands against his chest with all my might. He didn't budge an inch, but my words hit him harder than any bullet. “Someone tried to kill me, Luke! And more importantly, they tried to kill your child!”
The silence that followed was absolute.
Dante lowered his weapon slightly from the doorway, his eyes widening in shock.
Luke stared down at me, his dark eyes searching my face, reading every tremor, every tear, every ounce of raw, unadulterated pain I had bottled up for three agonizing years. His gaze slowly dropped from my eyes down to my stomach, where my oversized sweater hid the gentle curve of our five-month-old baby.
“A... child?” Luke choked out, the word foreign on his tongue, stripped of all its corporate authority. He reached out with a trembling hand, hovering just inches above my waistline, afraid to touch. “You’re... you’re pregnant?”
“Almost five months,” I whispered bitterly, stepping back out of his reach. “I went to the hospital yesterday to talk about ending it because I couldn't bear the thought of raising a baby in your nightmare of a world, surrounded by people who despise me. But Elena stopped me. She ran tests. She found the toxins, Luke. Your mother and Vanessa knew every single thing that happened under that roof.”
Luke’s face didn't just turn pale; it turned the color of ash.
The aura of an untouchable Chicago kingpin dissolved, leaving behind a man standing on the edge of an abyss. In that single moment, the terrifying truth settled over him: the enemies he had spent a decade fighting in the shadows hadn't attacked his warehouses or his banks. They had gone after his blood.
“Dante,” Luke said without turning around, his voice dropping into a deadly, ice-cold register that made even his most trusted enforcer snap to attention.
“Boss?”
“Lock down every estate, every warehouse, and every shipping dock we own from here to the Indiana border,” Luke ordered, his eyes never leaving mine. “Pull every favor, interrogate every servant, and tear my mother’s townhouse apart brick by brick if you have to. Find my sister.”
“And Mrs. Morgan?” Dante asked cautiously.
May you like
Luke looked back down at me, his expression hardening into a vow forged in steel. He reached out and gently cupped my cheek, his thumb wiping away a stray tear with a tenderness I had never known he possessed.
“She’s coming home,” Luke said softly, scooping me up into his arms before I could protest. “And this time... nobody touches her.”
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