Chapter 2 - The Shadows of the EstateThe silence that followed my confession stretched out like a drawn blade.
Roman didn't move. His hand remained suspended in the air inches from my back, his fingers trembling slightly as if he wanted to trace the jagged scars but was terrified that even the lightest touch would cause me pain.
“Grant,” Roman repeated, the name tasting like poison on his tongue. It wasn't a question. It was a death sentence.
“He broke my spine when I was twenty,” I said, my voice barely audible as I kept my gaze fixed on the mahogany floorboards. “When I tried to stop him from liquidating our mother’s trust to pay off his gambling debts in Atlantic City. The burns… those came later. Whenever one of his shipping deals went south, or a rival syndicate cut into his margins, he needed a place to put his anger. And since our father was too busy drinking himself to death to notice, I was always there.”
I expected Roman to look away in disgust. Men like him—men who ruled the underworld—had a certain clinical detachment from violence, but seeing it inflicted on a defenseless sister inside a Westchester mansion usually provoked either indifference or contempt.
Instead, Roman stepped closer, his chest nearly brushing my bare shoulders. He reached out, his large hands resting gently on my hips—avoiding the damaged tissue entirely—and guided me toward the velvet armchair by the fireplace.
“Sit,” he commanded softly.
I sank into the chair, shivering despite the warmth of the room. Roman knelt on one knee in front of me, his dark eyes searching my face with an intensity that felt almost unbearable.
“Why didn't you leave?” he asked, his voice rough. “You had money. You had access to cars, accounts, lawyers.”
“Leave and go where?” I let out a bitter, humorless laugh. “Grant controlled every aspect of my public life. If I ran, he reported me missing as a mental health risk. He had doctors on retainer who signed off on whatever sedative he needed to keep me locked in the east wing. To the outside world, I was just the fragile, reclusive Mercer daughter who preferred solitude.”
Roman’s hands clenched into tight fists resting on his knees. “And today… when he walked you down the aisle?”
“He told me that if I smiled for the cameras and played the dutiful bride, he wouldn't burn down the women’s shelter I’ve been secretly funding downtown,” I whispered, looking straight into his eyes. “Grant knew how to chain me, Roman. He knew exactly which strings to pull.”
Roman stood up slowly. He walked over to the mahogany liquor cabinet built into the wall, poured two fingers of unaged amber bourbon into a crystal glass, and downed it in a single swallow.
When he turned back around, the shock on his face had been replaced by something far more dangerous: cold, calculated, methodical rage.
“Your brother thinks he bought himself immunity by trading you to me,” Roman said, his voice dropping into that low, resonant rumble that made the hair on my arms stand up. “He thinks this marriage is a cage for you.”
“Isn't it?” I asked, tilting my chin up. “I traded one master for another, didn't I? The only difference is your last name is Caruso instead of Mercer.”
Roman crossed the room in two long strides, stopping right in front of my chair. He reached out, gently hooking his finger under my chin, forcing me to look up at him.
“Listen to me very carefully, Evelyn,” he said, every word weighted with absolute, unyielding authority. “You are not a prisoner in this house. You are my wife. And in my world, a wife is protected by every gun, every lawyer, and every drop of blood I command.”
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His thumb brushed gently across my lower lip.
“Your brother traded you because he is a coward,” Roman continued softly. “And tomorrow morning, I am going to show him what happens when you hand your executioner the key to your house.”
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