Chapter 6
The frail woman on the mattress blinked against the harsh light. Her cheekbones, once round and rosy, were sharp and hollow, but her eyes held a spark of desperate, disbelieving hope. She stared at the towering figure standing in the doorway.
"Desmond?" Victoria whispered, her voice raspy and weak from disuse. "You came."
Desmond dropped to his knees on the filthy concrete floor, entirely disregarding his tailored dark three-piece suit. He crawled the short distance to the mattress and carefully gathered the fragile woman into his powerful arms. He buried his face in her matted hair, his broad shoulders shaking with silent, devastating sobs.
"How long have you been in the dark?" Desmond asked, his voice muffled against her neck, reverting to his interrogative cadence to maintain some semblance of his shattered sanity.
"Since she took me," Victoria sobbed, wrapping her thin arms around his neck. "Since the night I vanished. She drugged me, Desmond. She kept me here. She told me you ordered it."
Desmond’s head snapped up. His cold, perceptive eyes, previously filled with tears, instantly transformed into twin pools of freezing, lethal hellfire. He slowly lowered Victoria back onto the mattress, kissing her forehead gently.
He stood up, rising to his full height. His angular face was a mask of pure, unadulterated murder. He turned slowly to face the hallway.
Sienna had taken advantage of the distraction. She was hiking up her sculpted sapphire satin gown, attempting to sprint back up the stone corridor toward the stairs.
"Did you honestly believe you could escape?" Desmond asked the empty air.
He moved with explosive, predatory speed, a blur of charcoal wool in the dim light. He closed the distance in seconds, catching Sienna by the back of her expensive gown. He hauled her violently backward, throwing her hard against the rough stone wall of the corridor.
Sienna screamed in pain, sliding down the wall to a heap on the floor. Her diamond earrings cut into her neck, and her carefully styled hair was ruined.
"Desmond, please!" Sienna begged, her fair skin scraped and bleeding. "I did it because I loved you! She was going to leave you! She was plotting against the syndicate!"
"Does locking a woman in the dark for a year sound like an act of love?" Desmond inquired, standing over her like an angel of death.
"She was weak!" Sienna shrieked, the venom finally pouring out in her desperation. "She didn't understand our world, Desmond! She was constantly begging you to leave the business! She was going to make you soft, and the rival families were going to slaughter us all! I did it for the empire!"
Elsie stood in the doorway of the cell, holding her neatly tied white apron. She watched the mafia boss confront his treacherous fiancée. The housemaid’s softly squared face was etched with horror, but she did not turn away. She had a front-row seat to the brutal reality of the underworld.
"How long did you plan to keep her breathing just below our feet?" Desmond asked, leaning down so his face was inches from Sienna's.
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"Until the wedding!" Sienna wept hysterically. "Then I was going to get rid of her! My father and I had a plan! We were going to absorb your territory!"
"Are you ready to discover what happens to those who betray me?" Desmond asked, drawing his customized handgun from his shoulder holster once more.
