Chapter 2 - The Whispers in the DarkMy heart slammed against my ribs like a trapped bird inside a cage. I spun around on my heel, my hand instinctively dropping to the custom-engraved Sig Sauer pistol holstered beneath my suit jacket.
“Who's there?” I barked, my voice echoing off the concrete walls with a lethal, razor-sharp edge.
For a terrifying second, there was only the sound of dripping water and ragged, shallow breathing. Then, a low, shuddering gasp cut through the gloom.
“Dante...?”
A frail, trembling figure detached itself from the darkness near the far corner of the room, shuffling forward into the weak shaft of light spilling in from the broken doorway.
My breath caught in my throat, and my weapon nearly slipped from my fingers.
It was Grace. But she looked nothing like the vibrant, radiant woman I had left six months ago. Her face was hollow, her cheeks sunken, and dark, bruised purple circles shadowed her unnaturally large, terrified eyes. Her once-glossy hair was tangled and matted against her neck, and the oversized cotton dress she wore hung loosely over a body that had been starved of proper nutrition.
Yet, her stomach was distended, swollen to the massive proportions of a full-term pregnancy.
“Grace... my God, Grace,” I choked out, rushing forward and dropping to my knees right in front of her.
I reached out with trembling hands, desperate to pull her into my arms, but she flinched violently backward, letting out a sharp, wounded cry as if she expected a blow.
“Don't... please don't hit me,” she sobbed, curling inward to protect her stomach with her skinny arms. “I didn't mean to drop the tray... I was just so dizzy... please, Elena, don't lock me in the dark again...”
“Elena?” The name of my mother sliced through my chest like a butcher's knife.
I froze, my hands hovering inches away from her shivering shoulders. “Grace, look at me. It's Dante. Your husband. I'm home. I came back for you.”
Slowly, agonizingly, she lifted her chin. Her bloodshot eyes focused on my face, searching every line and shadow as if trying to determine if I was real or just another hallucination conjured by weeks of solitary confinement and psychological torture.
When she recognized the frantic desperation in my eyes, a dam broke inside her. She launched herself forward into my arms, sobbing hysterically as she buried her face against my chest.
“She locked me in here, Dante,” Grace wailed, her fingers clutching frantically at the fabric of my suit. “The day after you left for Europe... your mother accused me of being a liability to the syndicate. She said a weak outsider couldn't carry a true Rossi heir. When I tried to pack my bags to leave, she dragged me down here, threw me onto that iron bed, and took away my phone. She told me you didn't want me anymore... that you had found someone else in Italy and abandoned us.”
A cold, homicidal rage—darker and more violent than anything I had ever experienced in all my years running syndicates—exploded behind my eyes. The blood rushing in my ears drowned out the sound of the rain outside.
“She told you what?” I whispered, my voice dropping into a deadly, chilling whisper that shook even me.
“She said you traded me away,” Grace wept, clutching her massive belly as another contraction seemed to wrack her frame. “And every day... she came down here to watch me starve. She wanted the baby, Dante. She said she would raise our son as her own proper heir, and that I was nothing more than an incubator to be disposed of the moment he was born.”
Suddenly, the harsh glare of the hallway overhead lighting cut through the open doorway.
Heavy, deliberate footsteps echoed across the concrete floor just outside the ruined panic room.
I gently pushed Grace behind my body, stepping back up to my full height as I drew my pistol and thumbed the safety off with a sharp, metallic click.
Stepping through the shattered steel frame, entirely unfazed by the weapon pointed straight at her chest, was my mother.
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Her white suit was spotless. Her expression was a mask of cold, unyielding granite. She didn't look at Grace at all; her dark, calculating eyes locked directly onto mine.
“Put the gun down, Dante,” my mother said calmly, her voice echoing with decades of absolute authority within the Rossi family. “You are making a terrible mistake over a girl who was never worthy of our name.”
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