Chapter 6 - The Siege of Ashford Castle
Three days inside the ancient stone walls of Ashford Castle felt like living inside a medieval fortress suspended in time.
The castle was a labyrinth of vaulted stone corridors, priceless oil paintings, roaring hearths, and an army of loyal guards patrolling every battlement. Dr. Vance had set up a fully equipped mini-hospital in the East Wing, monitoring my health and the triplets with clinical precision. Every test confirmed the miraculous truth: despite the plane crash, the snow, and the trauma, the three tiny heartbeats were growing stronger every day.
And Dominic... Dominic never left my side.
He slept on a cot beside my four-poster bed, worked from a laptop on the mahogany desk in the corner, and watched over me like a hawk guarding its nest. The ruthless mafia boss who commanded syndicates across continents vanished when he was with me, replaced by a man whose entire universe had narrowed down to the woman carrying his children.
It was late evening on the fourth day when the castle alarms began to wail.
Not the gentle fire alarms, but the deep, mournful toll of the iron bell—the ancient siege bell that hadn't rung in over a hundred years.
I bolted upright in bed, my heart hammering against my ribs.
The heavy oak door flew open, and Dominic stepped inside. He had traded his soft sweaters for tactical combat gear, a black Kevlar vest strapped over a dark tactical shirt, and a suppressed Sig Sauer pistol holstered at his thigh. His face was a mask of cold, lethal fury.
"Get up, Vivien," he commanded, moving swiftly to the bed and handing me a thick wool coat and boots.
"What's happening?" I gasped, scrambling out of bed and shoving my feet into the boots. "Are they here?"
"Victor Barzini tracked our transponder coordinates from the downed jet," Dominic said grimly, locking a reinforced steel security shutter over the bedroom windows. "They've breached the outer courtyard. A hit squad of thirty men is attempting to storm the keep."
"Thirty men?!" My voice cracked with panic. "Dominic, this is a castle, not a military base! How are we going to hold them off?"
Dominic stopped in front of me, placing both hands firmly on my shoulders. His grey eyes burned with an intense, unyielding fire. ရှင်
"My ancestors built these walls to withstand English armies for months, Vivien," he said, his voice steady and hypnotic. "And I have modern armaments they never dreamed of. Marcus and my detail are holding the main hall. But I am moving you and Dr. Vance to the ancestral panic room beneath the chapel."
"I'm not leaving you!" I shouted, grabbing the lapel of his tactical vest. "I'm not hiding in a hole while you fight an army out there!"
"You are carrying my children, Vivien!" Dominic roared back, his voice echoing off the stone walls with a terrifying authority that made me flinch. For a second, the mafia boss took over the man who loved me. Then, his expression softened instantly, his thumb tracing my jawline. "If anything happened to you, I would burn this world to ash. Please... let me protect you. That is my only purpose left."
Tears spilled over my lashes, hot and fast. I nodded dumbly.
May you like
He kissed my forehead with fierce desperation, then swept me up into his arms, carrying me down three flights of winding stone stairs into the deep, echoing foundations of the castle.
When he sealed the massive hydraulic steel door of the panic room behind me, locking me away in safety with Dr. Vance, the last thing I saw through the closing gap was Dominic turning around in the torchlit corridor, raising his weapon as the distant sound of automatic gunfire echoed up from the stone halls above.
