Chapter 2 - Shadows of the Past
The words echoed off the high marble walls, hanging in the air like a heavy, suffocating fog.
Abigail stared at the man standing above her, her mind spinning in total confusion. Her knees felt weak, and she was forced to lean against the side of a nearby serving cart to keep herself upright. Eight years? Searching for her? It made no sense. She had lived a quiet, obscure life in the lower-income districts of the city, working two or three jobs at a time just to keep a roof over her head. She didn't know billionaires. She certainly didn't know men like Matteo Romano.
"Mr. Romano..." Abigail began, her voice barely a whisper above the gentle hum of the room's ventilation system. "I... I think you have the wrong person. I'm just a server. I've never met you before in my life."
Matteo took a half-step closer, his large frame casting a protective shadow over her. "You haven't met me, Abigail. But I have spent every single day of the last eight years looking for the woman who saved my family."
Richard Sinclair stepped forward again, his fingers twitching nervously against his tailored jacket. "Matteo, this is absurd. She's a service worker. You're confusing her with someone else from your social circle—"
"If you interrupt me again, Richard," Matteo said calmly, his tone devoid of any emotion, "I will pull every single line of credit my banks hold over your medical supply firm by midnight. Do not speak."
Richard’s mouth snapped shut. Color drained entirely from his face, and he took a quick, involuntary step backward, pulling his daughter behind him.
Matteo turned his full attention back to Abigail. The cold, lethal edge in his demeanor melted away entirely as he looked down at her. "Eight years ago. It was the third of November. A rainy Tuesday night on Highway 9."
Abigail went rigid. The date hit her like a physical blow.
"My younger sister, Isabella, was seventeen years old," Matteo continued, his deep voice carrying a strange, raw vulnerability that sent chills down the spines of everyone listening. "She was driving home from school when an oncoming truck lost control on the slick pavement. Her car was thrown off the embankment. By the time emergency crews pulled her from the wreckage, she had lost more than half her blood volume."
A sudden collective gasp went through the crowd, but Matteo ignored it.
"She was rushed to St. Jude’s Memorial," he went on, his eyes never leaving Abigail’s pale face. "Her condition was critical. She needed immediate, massive blood transfusions to survive surgery. But Isabella has an extremely rare blood phenotype—AB negative with a rare antigen deficit. The hospital’s blood bank was empty. The regional network had nothing in stock. The doctors told my father and me to prepare to say goodbye."
Abigail’s breath hitched in her throat. The memories, long buried under years of daily survival and hardship, began to resurfare with terrifying clarity.
She remembered the smell of rain that night. She remembered being eighteen years old, sitting in the cold, fluorescent-lit waiting room of St. Jude’s Memorial after taking her late mother to the emergency room for asthma treatment. She remembered the sheer panic in the eyes of a young nurse who had rushed out of the trauma bay, clutching a clipboard and desperately asking anyone in the waiting area if they knew their blood type.
"A young woman was sitting in that waiting room," Matteo said quietly, his voice trembling ever so slightly. "She wasn't a patient. She wasn't wealthy. She was tired, wet from the rain, and waiting for her mother’s prescriptions. But when she heard the nurse say a seventeen-year-old girl was dying in Room 4 because of a blood shortage, she stood up without hesitation."
Abigail covered her mouth with a trembling hand.
"She stepped forward," Matteo whispered, stepping even closer to Abigail until he was standing right beside her kneeling form. "She rolled up her sleeves. She sat in a donation chair for nearly two hours, giving far more blood than the standard safety protocols allowed because the doctors were desperate. She stayed until her face was as white as a sheet."
"I... I remember," Abigail whispered, tears finally spilling over her eyelashes and tracing wet paths down her burning, red cheek. "The nurse... she was crying. She said a girl was dying..."
"And then," Matteo said, a faint, bittersweet smile touching the corners of his lips, "before my father and I could arrive from the airport, before anyone could officially register her full name or offer her a reward, that young woman quietly gathered her coat, refused the compensation check the hospital offered, and walked out into the rain."
He reached out his hand, offering it to Abigail.
"All she left behind on the donor log was a first name, a last initial, and a blood type," Matteo murmured. "Abigail F. AB Negative."
The entire ballroom was deathly silent.
Vanessa Sinclair stood paralyzed, her mouth slightly open, her face pale with horror as she realized the massive, catastrophe she had just brought upon herself. She had insulted, slapped, and humiliated the woman the most dangerous man in the state had spent nearly a decade searching for.
From the edge of the grand staircase near the orchestra, a young woman in a deep emerald velvet dress stepped out from the shadows. She was roughly twenty-five, with soft features and dark, expressive eyes identical to Matteo’s. Tears were streaming down her face, glistening under the chandelier lights.
She walked quickly past the frozen guests, her heels clicking softly against the marble, until she stopped right beside Matteo.
Isabella Romano looked at Abigail, her breath catching in her chest. She looked at the tired face, the worn uniform, the red mark on her cheek, and the rounded curve of her pregnant belly.
"I’ve carried your name in my heart every single day," Isabella whispered, her voice cracking with pure emotion. "The doctors told me I should have died that night. They said a miracle walked into the ER, gave me her blood, and vanished into the dark."
Isabella dropped to her knees right beside Abigail on the glass-strewn floor, completely uncaring of her expensive velvet dress. She reached out and gently cupped Abigail’s hands in her own.
"You told me I was going to be okay," Isabella sobbed softly, looking directly into Abigail’s tear-filled eyes. "I was barely conscious, but I remember a voice holding my hand and telling me to stay strong. It was you. I know it was you."
Abigail shook her head, overwhelmed by the sudden tidal wave of emotion crashing over her. "I... I just did what anyone would have done. You were so young..."
"No one else stepped up," Matteo said, his voice hard as iron once more as he looked up and swept his gaze over the room full of wealthy, influential elites. "Four hundred people in this city were asked to donate that week. Not one of them cared enough to answer the call. Only you did."
Matteo then turned his head, his eyes locking onto Vanessa Sinclair like a pair of loaded gun barrels. The air in the ballroom dropped several degrees.
"And tonight," Matteo said, his voice dropping into a low, terrifying growl that chilled everyone to the bone, "a member of the Sinclair family thought it appropriate to strike the savior of my sister's life."
Richard Sinclair immediately rushed forward, sweating profusely, his hands raised in a desperate gesture of surrender. "Matteo! Please! Vanessa didn't know! It was a terrible mistake! We will compensate her! We will pay her whatever she wants—"
"You think money fixes this?" Matteo asked smoothly, rising to his full height. He loomed over Richard like a shadow of impending doom. "You think your filthy wealth gives your daughter the right to lay a hand on a pregnant woman? On my family's benefactor?"
"Matteo, please!" Vanessa squeaked, her aristocratic composure completely gone as she shrank back behind her father. "I'm sorry! I'll apologize! I'll give her my dress, my jewelry—"
"Keep your trinkets," Matteo snapped coldly. He raised his hand slightly, signaling to his head of security, a massive man named Marcus who was standing near the entrance. "Marcus."
"Yes, Mr. Romano?" the security chief replied instantly, stepping forward.
"Effective immediately," Matteo ordered, his voice echoing with absolute authority across the silent room, "all commercial leases held by Sinclair Enterprises in any Romano property are terminated. All shipping contracts with their medical logistics division are canceled. Inform our legal team to begin liquidating our joint ventures."
Richard Sinclair gasped, clutching his chest as if he were having a heart attack. "Matteo! That will ruin us! That’s seventy percent of our operating capital!"
"Then I suggest you learn how to live with seventy percent less," Matteo replied without a shred of mercy. "Consider it a lesson in manners."
Matteo then turned his back on the hysterical Sinclairs, completely ignoring their pleas as security guards quietly moved in to escort the disgraced family out of the ballroom.
He turned back to Abigail, offering his large, steady hand once more.
May you like
"Abigail," Matteo said gently, his eyes filled with a deep, unwavering pledge of protection. "Your days of carrying heavy trays and suffering the insults of arrogant fools are over. Please... let us take care of you."
Abigail looked at his outstretched hand, then at Isabella, who was watching her with pure gratitude and warmth. For the first time in eight years, the heavy weight resting on her shoulders began to feel just a little lighter.
