Chapter 8
"No! Please! Not the basement!" Sabine shrieked, her voice echoing shrilly off the gilded wall panels as the two guards hauled her backward. She kicked and thrashed, her burgundy gown dragging across the floor, but it was entirely useless against the overwhelming strength of the syndicate enforcers.
"You will burn in hell for this, Tristan!" Sabine screamed as they dragged her toward the heavy service doors.
"I am already there, Sabine," Tristan replied softly, watching as the heavy doors slammed shut, cutting off her frantic, echoing screams with a definitive, satisfying thud.
The grand dining hall was plunged back into a profound, ringing silence. The towering Christmas tree continued to sparkle with warm fairy lights and gold ornaments, casting a beautiful, festive glow over a room that had just hosted a brutal, bloodless coup.
Tristan let out a slow, measured breath, the adrenaline of the confrontation slowly ebbing from his system. He turned his broad, masculine shoulders and looked across the room.
Clara Hayes was standing exactly where he had left her, near the head of the banquet table. The beautiful, gentle maid was cradling two-week-old Eli securely against her chest, rocking him slowly. Her black maid dress was still creased, her white apron rumpled, and her hair disheveled, but the exhausted, vulnerable manner had been replaced by a fierce, radiant maternal glow. Her puffy, shadowed eyes were fixed on the sleeping infant, tears of pure joy tracing silent paths down her rosy cheeks.
Tristan walked slowly toward them, his polished shoes making almost no sound on the cream marble columns' shadows. He stopped just inches away, his towering presence completely enveloping her smaller frame.
"Is he unharmed, Clara?" Tristan asked, his deep voice softening into a register he reserved only for her.
Clara looked up, her expressive eyes meeting his dark, intense gaze. "He is perfect, Tristan," she whispered, dropping his formal title in the heavy intimacy of the moment. "He is perfectly healthy. She didn't hurt him. She just... she just kept him away from me."
Tristan reached out, his hand trembling slightly for the first time in his life. The artistic negative-space tattoos on his fingers stark against the soft cream blanket as he gently brushed his knuckles against his son's incredibly soft, fair cheek. Eli shifted in his sleep, letting out a tiny, contented sigh.
"I believed he was gone," Tristan murmured, the pain of the last two weeks bleeding into his controlled voice. "I stood at the empty grave they showed me, and I believed our son was dead."
"I knew he wasn't," Clara sobbed softly, leaning into Tristan's strong, solid chest. "I felt it in my heart. But they wouldn't let me see him. They forced me back to work. I was so scared I was losing my mind."
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Tristan wrapped his massive arms around both Clara and the baby, pulling them into a fierce, protective embrace. He buried his face in her disheveled hair, inhaling the clean, sweet scent of her, letting it wash away the darkness of the evening.
"You are never working in this house as a servant again," Tristan promised, his voice a low, desperate rumble against her ear. "You are the mother of my heir. You are everything to me."
