Chapter 5
The heavy, suffocating silence of the room was broken only by Georgina’s ragged, panicked weeping. She backed further away, her heels catching slightly on the edge of a thick Persian rug. The bright, luminous colors of the room felt sharp and interrogative, pinning her under Rowan's unyielding gaze.
"Rowan, my father will be furious," Georgina warned, her voice trembling as she attempted to pivot from pleading to threatening. "He brought you the northern shipping routes. He commands five hundred men. If you humiliate me tonight, you will start a war that will tear this city apart."
"Have I ever feared a war, Georgina?" Rowan asked quietly, his deep voice carrying a terrifyingly calm authority.
He didn't wait for her answer. He turned his attention away from his trembling fiancée and looked back at Mila. The young housemaid looked incredibly fragile in her sophisticated black uniform, yet there was a quiet, undeniable strength in her expressive brows and the set of her gently dimpled chin.
"Mila," Rowan said, softening the sharp edges of his voice as he addressed her. "Why did she stay away?"
Mila swallowed hard, setting the heavy silver serving tray down onto the damask tablecloth. She wiped her wet cheeks with her wrists, trying to maintain her graceful posture despite the emotional tidal wave crashing over her.
"My mother didn't know she was pregnant until after she ran away, sir," Mila explained, her American accent soft and melodic, so painfully reminiscent of the woman Rowan had loved twenty-seven years ago. "She was terrified of your world. She said she couldn't raise a child surrounded by violence. She changed her name and moved to the Midwest."
"Did she suffer?" Rowan asked, the question catching slightly in his chest. It was the most vulnerable he had allowed himself to sound in decades.
"She worked hard," Mila nodded, fresh tears welling in her eyes. "But she loved me. She was happy. She only got sick last year. Before she died, she gave me a letter and told me who you were. She said if I ever needed protection, you were the only man strong enough to provide it."
Rowan’s sharply defined jawline clenched tight. Evelyn had fled his world to protect their child, only to send that child back to him when she could no longer protect her herself. And Georgina had intercepted her at the gates, reducing his own blood to a servant.
"Did she ever stop loving me?" Rowan asked, his voice barely a whisper in the vast, echoing room.
"No," Mila smiled sadly through her tears. "She talked about you every single day."
Rowan closed his eyes for a fraction of a second. When he opened them, the sorrow was gone, replaced by a cold, absolute, and terrifying wrath directed entirely at the woman in the satin gown.
"Did you threaten her life to force her into this uniform?" Rowan asked Georgina, taking another slow, predatory step toward his fiancée.
"I offered her a job!" Georgina shrieked, backing into a marble column. "She was broke! I gave her a roof over her head! I was generous!"
"Is blackmailing my daughter into servitude your definition of generosity?" Rowan asked.
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He reached into the inner pocket of his tailored suit jacket and retrieved a sleek, encrypted smartphone. He pressed a single button, raising it to his ear. The artistic tattoo on his neck shifted smoothly with the movement.
"Are my security details stationed at the front doors?" Rowan asked into the receiver. "Will you come to the dining room and escort Miss Sloane to her vehicle?"
