Helena D’Angelo violently seized three-year-old Sophie’s arm and forcefully shoved the toddler back toward the exterior doors

The two bodyguards behind Helena moved instantly. They grabbed the matriarch by the arms of her luxurious emerald gown, hauling her away from the registration table.

"Roman! You cannot do this to me!" Helena screamed, fighting against the massive men, her designer heels slipping wildly on the polished marble. "I am your mother! I gave you life! You cannot banish me in front of these people!"

"You are no mother of mine," Roman replied slowly, not even turning his head to watch her struggle. "Lock her in the estate’s holding cell in the basement. Strip her of all communications. If she speaks to any of the guards, cut out her tongue."

A collective, muffled gasp rippled through the assembled capos and wealthy donors. The bright, cinematic lighting seemed to freeze the horrifying reality of his order. No one doubted that he meant exactly what he said.

"You will burn in hell for this!" Helena shrieked as she was dragged down the main corridor, her curses echoing loudly until the heavy brass doors of the ballroom slammed shut behind her, plunging the space back into a suffocating quiet.

Roman let out a slow, measured breath. He smoothed the lapels of his dark three-piece suit, his tattooed fingers moving with elegant, practiced calm. He slowly turned around to face Nora and Sophie.

Nora instinctively took a half-step backward, pulling Sophie closer. She had loved the man Roman used to be, but the man standing before her—the one who had just brutally struck his mother and ordered her locked in a dungeon without raising his voice—was a terrifying stranger.

"Nora," Roman said. His deep, raspy voice softened by a fraction, though it retained its natural, dangerous authority. "Are you hurt?"

"No," Nora whispered, her fair, rosy skin pale with lingering shock. She looked at the intricate tattoos creeping up his neck, the expensive cut of his clothes. "I... I thought you were dead, Roman. Every day for three years. I visited an empty grave."

"I was in a coma for two months after the raid," Roman explained slowly, maintaining that deliberate pause between his words. "When I woke. She told me you took a payout. And ran. She said the child wasn't mine."

"I would never," Nora choked out, tears finally spilling freely down her cheeks. "I worked double shifts at the diner just to afford her winter coats. We lived in a studio apartment in the narrows. We had nothing, Roman. Nothing."

Roman knelt down on the hard marble floor once again. He ignored the hundreds of eyes watching him. He focused entirely on the small girl clinging to Nora’s modest trousers.

"Sophie," Roman murmured, extending one large, tattooed hand toward her. "Come here. Please."

Sophie looked up at her mother. Nora gave a tiny, trembling nod. The three-year-old slowly let go of her mother’s leg and took two hesitant steps forward. She looked at his dark suit, his perfectly trimmed beard, and his cold eyes that had suddenly turned incredibly warm.