Chapter 2 - THE SHADOW OF VALENTINE
The stranger standing in the fog was Gabriel Valentine.
To the outside world, he was a recluse billionaire who owned shipping lanes, steel manufacturing plants, and vast swathes of real estate across the Eastern Seaboard. To those who operated in the darker underbelly of the city, he was Don Valentine—the undisputed ruler of the syndicate that held even Senator Thorne in its debt.
Bianca stood paralyzed, her hand still hovering in mid-air from where she had raised it to strike Mara a third time.
"D-Don Valentine," Bianca stammered, her cruel composure shattering into panicked pieces. "I... I didn't see your car. What are you doing in a public cemetery?"
Gabriel did not answer her. He didn't even look at her.
His dark gray eyes, cold and sharp as chipped flint, were fixed entirely on Mara, kneeling in the wet mud. He saw the red handprint burning across her cheek. He saw the blood trickling down her split lip. And then, his gaze dropped to her hands—clutched tightly over her lower abdomen.
Four months ago, in a quiet, rain-slicked lounge in South Brooklyn, Gabriel had met a woman who didn't know who he was. She hadn't cowered before his title. She hadn't flirted for his money. She had simply shared a quiet glass of scotch with a lonely man and offered him a warmth he hadn't felt in decades.
They had spent one night together in his private penthouse—a night of desperate, quiet intensity. By the time he woke up the next morning, she was gone, leaving behind only the faint scent of lavender and a void he had tried in vain to fill ever since.
He had searched for her for four months.
And now, he found her kneeling in the dirt at the feet of a senator's spoiled daughter.
Gabriel stepped forward, ignoring Bianca entirely. He knelt in the mud—uncaring that his ten-thousand-dollar bespoke wool trousers were soaking in wet earth—and reached out a leather-gloved hand toward Mara.
"Mara," he said softly. The coldness in his voice vanished, replaced by an agonizingly gentle tone.
Mara looked up at him, her lips trembling. "You..."
"I found you," Gabriel whispered.
He gently reached down, his leather-gloved fingers scooping up the silver bracelet from the mud. He carefully picked it up, wiped the dirt away with the silk lining of his pocket square, and placed it back in her trembling palm.
Bianca’s eyes widened in horror. "Gabriel... do you know this trash? She’s my father's housemaid! She was sleeping with my husband Preston!"
Gabriel slowly stood up. The warmth left his face in a single instant, replaced by a mask of absolute, lethal malice. He turned his head slowly to look at Bianca.
"Say that word again," Gabriel commanded quietly.
Bianca swallowed hard, taking a step backward. "What?"
"Call her trash again," Gabriel said, taking a single step toward Bianca. "And I will have Senator Thorne stripped of his committee chair, his bank accounts frozen, and his name dragged through federal court before the sun sets today."
Bianca gasped, stumbling over her heels. "You... you can't do that!"
"Try me, Bianca," Gabriel replied, his voice dangerously smooth. "Your father owes me forty million dollars in unrecorded campaign loans. I own him. I own his house. And I own the ground you are standing on."
Gabriel turned to his chief security chief, a massive, scarred man named Viktor who had stepped up behind him.
"Viktor."
"Yes, Don Valentine?"
"Take Miss Thorne's car keys. Send her home in a taxi. And inform Senator Thorne that if his daughter comes within one hundred yards of Mara Whitfield ever again, I will foreclose on his entire estate."
Bianca began to cry—not from sorrow, but from utter humiliation and terror—as Viktor stepped in front of her, extending his hand for her car keys.
Gabriel turned back to Mara. He bent down again, slipping his arms underneath her back and knees, and lifted her off the cold ground into his arms as if she weighed nothing at all.
May you like
Mara gasped, holding onto his lapels. "Gabriel... wait... I can walk..."
"You are covered in blood and mud," Gabriel murmured, carrying her toward the waiting black Maybach at the cemetery gates. "You are not walking anywhere."
