Chapter 2
The effect of Elliot's low question was instantaneous and absolute. Every single guest at the adjacent tables stopped eating and speaking. Forks hovered motionless over gold-rimmed porcelain. Crystal wine glasses were lowered slowly to the tables. The polite, affluent American accents died in their throats. Dozens of fair, rosy-cheeked faces turned toward the head of the room, watching the mafia boss direct his terrifying, unbroken focus onto a housemaid and a solid wall.
Cora held Elliot’s intense, unyielding gaze. Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. She knew the extreme danger of crossing Viviana Shaw, a woman who commanded a powerful syndicate of her own. But looking into Elliot's perceptive eyes, Cora knew that lying to him would be a fatal mistake.
Before Cora could draw a breath to answer, Viviana shifted smoothly in her velvet chair.
Viviana met Elliot’s cold gaze with a faint, indulgent smile. She forced a patient, dismissive look onto her face, though her fair skin had turned a sickly shade of white. She gave a soft, airy breath of laughter that echoed artificially in the dead silent room.
"It's just a few mice, darling," Viviana stated, her American accent dripping with condescending reassurance.
Her eyes frantically searched Elliot’s angular expression for a sign of agreement, silently urging him to play along and not cause a scene in front of their powerful guests. She needed him to turn away from that panel.
Elliot did not look at his fiancée. He did not return her smile. He remained perfectly still, his powerful shoulders squared in his dark three-piece suit. He kept his attention entirely focused on the trembling housemaid holding her hand against the woodwork.
Cora’s inner brows lifted slightly in a helpless, agonizing expression of dread. She swallowed hard, a visible, painful gulp in her throat, trying to force moisture into her dry mouth. She made a decision that would alter the course of the underworld forever.
Without asking for permission, Cora dropped to a crouch. Her sophisticated black maid dress bunched around her knees. Her slender fingers reached beneath the heavy gilded trim at the base of the panel. She found the small, concealed exterior brass latch.
She pulled it firmly. The mechanism clicked, and with a heavy, smooth glide, she pulled the entire ivory panel open, revealing a hidden, dimly lit service room behind the walls of the grand dining hall.
Elliot’s heavy, tattooed hand immediately shot out, steadying the open panel beside Cora.
Standing just inside the narrow, dusty space was a woman. She was dressed in a simple cotton nightdress and a soft, worn cardigan, her feet entirely bare. She was frail and exhausted, her fair skin pale and sickly, but her features were unmistakable.
It was Helena Crowne.
Cora looked directly up at Elliot from her crouched position. Her lips trembled violently.
"Your wife," Cora whispered, her voice cracking under the sheer weight of the revelation. "She’s alive."
The words hit the room with the force of a detonating bomb. A collective, quiet gasp rippled through the fifty elite guests.
Helena looked directly at Elliot through the hidden doorway. Her inner brows lifted helplessly, a reflection of profound, agonizing relief and despair. Tears spilled quietly down her hollowed cheeks, tracking across her fair skin.
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"I heard you mourning me," Helena said, her voice fragile, exhausted, and barely more than a whisper.
Elliot froze. His entire body went rigid, the breath catching in his broad chest. His cold eyes lingered on Helena for a brief, incredibly painful beat as the impossible reality cemented itself in his mind. The woman he had grieved, the wife he had buried, had been locked inside his own home.
