Chapter 2 - The Crimson LedgerThe interior of Giovanni’s matte-black Maybach felt like a different world. The partition between the driver and the back seat was up, enclosing us in a quiet cocoon of soft leather, dark wood paneling, and the faint, clean scent of cedar and rain.
I stared out the window as the Chrysler Building blurred past in a smear of neon and steel. My chest was still heaving, a residual tremor running through my limbs from the sheer adrenaline of standing up to Celeste and Patricia in front of the entire New York elite.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I whispered, not looking at him.
“Do what?” Giovanni asked from the opposite side of the spacious leather seat, his long legs stretched out comfortably, his dark eyes never leaving my face.
“Humiliate them. Or... or defend me. You’ve probably made enemies of half the board members who fund Patricia’s charity circuits.”
“Let them be enemies,” Giovanni replied indifferently, loosening his black silk tie by a fraction of an inch. “People who rule through fear only respect power that is louder than theirs. Patricia and her daughter have spent five years treating you like furniture in your own home because they assumed no one was paying attention.”
I turned my head to look at him, the streetlights catching the sharp angles of his jawline and the silver threads woven into his dark suit. “Why were you paying attention, Giovanni? Out of all the women in that room—women who would gladly trade their last name for a fraction of your notice—why did you look at the girl holding the purse?”
A heavy, electric silence settled between us. He didn't look away. Instead, he leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees, closing the distance between us until I could feel the heat radiating off his body.
“Because,” Giovanni said softly, his voice dropping an octave, “I know what it looks like when a vulture circles a dying estate. I saw your father three weeks before his accident, Willow. He came to my office.”
My breath caught in my throat. The world inside the car seemed to shrink until there was nothing left except the sound of my own pulse.
“My father? What did he say?”
“He knew what Patricia was doing,” Giovanni said, his expression darkening into a hard, unforgiving mask. “He knew she was isolating you, draining your accounts, and stripping away your independence so that when he passed, you’d have no legal footing to contest his will. He asked me to protect you.”
“Protect me?” A bitter laugh escaped my lips, though my eyes stung with sudden, hot tears. “If he knew, why didn't he stop her? Why did he leave me in that house with them?”
“Because he ran out of time,” Giovanni said bluntly, leaving no room for comforting illusions. “The night before his car went off the bridge in Westchester, he signed a codicil naming an independent executor to audit the entire Hayes estate. That executor is me.”
I stared at him, the room spinning slightly. “You?”
“Me,” Giovanni confirmed. “Which means, Miss Hayes, as of midnight tonight, your stepmother no longer controls a single cent of your father’s fortune. And the brownstone in Brooklyn? It was never hers to sell. It belongs entirely to you.”
Before I could fully digest the magnitude of what he was saying, the car slowed to a smooth, silent halt.
I looked out the window. We weren’t driving toward my apartment in Queens, nor were we heading back to the cold, sterile limestone mansion in the Upper East Side where Patricia and Celeste reigned.
We were parked in front of an iron security gate tucked away on a quiet, tree-lined street in the West Village—a historic, red-brick carriage house shrouded in ivy and glowing amber porch lights.
May you like
“Where are we?” I asked, turning to him in confusion.
“Your new home,” Giovanni said, reaching across the console to push the heavy car door open. “At least, until we finish dismantling your stepmother’s life piece by piece. You aren't going back to that house, Willow. Not tonight. Not ever.”
