Chapter 10
The question hung in the bright, luminous air of the study. The crackling of the marble fireplace cast soft shadows across Dorian Ashcombe’s angular face. The mafia boss looked down at the housemaid in her pristine black dress and the young boy in his miniature dinner jacket. For the past four months, Dorian had treated Ellis as his own blood, molding him, protecting him, and accepting him as the heir to the Ashcombe empire. The sudden revelation of the boy's true parentage did not erase the bond that had been forged.
Dorian unclasped his hands and walked slowly toward them. Flora instinctively tightened her grip on Ellis, her expressive brows drawing together in fear. She remembered Saskia’s parting words. She knew too much. She was a liability.
“Do you believe I am the kind of man who would harm a mother who has just braved hell to reclaim her son?” Dorian asked, stopping a respectful distance away so as not to crowd them.
Flora looked up into his cold, observant eyes. There was no malice in them, only an intense, calculating intelligence. “I don't know what kind of man you are, Mr. Ashcombe. I just want to take my son and go home. I won't say a word about what happened here tonight. I swear it.”
Dorian looked at Ellis. The boy peeked out from his mother’s shoulder, looking at the towering mafia boss. There was a profound, unspoken understanding between the man and the child.
“Do you honestly believe the Moretti family will allow you to return to your apartment and live in peace once they realize their conspiracy has failed?” Dorian asked, his deep voice steady and grave.
Flora froze. The blood drained from her fair, rosy cheeks. The realization hit her with the force of a physical blow. The Morettis had orchestrated the kidnapping. They knew who she was. If Saskia disappeared and the adoption was annulled, the rival syndicate would immediately target Flora and Ellis to clean up their loose ends or to use them as leverage against Dorian.
“They will come after us?” Flora whispered, terror gripping her heart anew.
“Would a syndicate willing to fake a child's death hesitate to silence the only witnesses to their treason?” Dorian asked, answering her fear with a brutal truth.
Flora stood up, pulling Ellis up with her. She looked around the opulent study, feeling the walls closing in. She had found her son, only to realize they were both trapped in a deadly war between criminal empires. She looked back at Dorian, her dark eyes searching his unreadable face for a lifeline.
“How do I protect him?” Flora asked, her voice cracking with desperation.
Dorian Ashcombe stood tall, his tailored dark suit immaculate, his family signet ring catching the gentle golden highlights of the chandelier above. He looked at the beautiful, fiercely protective housemaid, and then at the boy he had already accepted as his heir. The lines of their lives were now irrevocably tangled.
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“Will you and my son remain here in this mansion, under the absolute protection of my guns and my men, where no one will ever dare to touch you again?” Dorian asked, his slow, controlled pause holding the weight of a permanent vow.
Flora stared at him, the silence of the room stretching into eternity as she realized that stepping out of the darkness meant stepping permanently into his shadow.
