Chapter 2 - The Second Sight
Women screamed as men scrambled over one another to drop beneath the heavy oak table. Silverware clattered, crystal shattered, and the heavy leather-bound dining chairs were overturned in a desperate bid for cover.
Outside, the wind howled through the jagged, gaping hole left in the northern window, bringing with it the freezing autumn air and the scent of gunpowder.
"Gabriel!" Damian’s voice boomed over the shrieks of his guests, authoritative and completely devoid of the panic that consumed everyone else.
From the shadow of the main hallway, a tall, whip-thin man with sharp features and a dark tactical coat appeared. Gabriel Romano, Damian’s cousin and head of security, moved with fluid, lethal grace. His suppressed pistol was already drawn, pointed toward the dark expanse of the lawn beyond the shattered window.
"North lawn!" Gabriel shouted back, his eyes tracking the tree line through the darkness. "First shooter is down. Marco took him out from the east watchtower."
The guests let out a collective, ragged breath. Several men began to push themselves up from the floor, wiping sweat from their foreheads, believing the nightmare was over.
Damian did not move. He remained pinned over Harper, his massive frame shielding her entirely from the exposed window.
"First?" Damian growled, his voice dangerously low.
Gabriel paused. His eyes flicked from the lawn back to his cousin.
"Check again," Damian ordered, his dark eyes fixed on the shattered remains of the empty chair two feet away from them.
Gabriel’s expression hardened into granite. Without a word, he raised a hand, signaling three tactical guards to flank the western perimeter of the house, while he slowly backed toward the dining room's control panel to lower the heavy steel emergency shutters.
On the floor, Harper was shaking violently.
The weight of Damian’s body pressing against her back was heavy, but for the first time in her life, the weight of a powerful man did not feel like a cage. It felt like an anchor holding her to the earth while the world tore itself apart.
Damian shifted his weight, pushing himself up onto his knees, though he kept his head low. He reached down and caught Harper by her shoulders, gently turning her over to face him.
"Are you hurt?" he asked.
Harper blinked, her vision swimming with tears she hadn't realized she was shedding. She stared at the sharp contour of his jaw, at the blood trickling from a tiny cut near his ear where a wooden splinter had grazed him.
"What?" she managed to squeeze out of her tight throat.
"Are you hurt?" he repeated, his tone fierce, demanding, yet stripped of any cruelty. His large hands moved swiftly over her arms, her shoulders, checking for blood or glass shards. "Look at me, Harper. Did anything hit you?"
"N-no," she stammered. "No. I'm... I'm okay."
Damian let out a sharp exhale through his nose, the tension in his massive shoulders dropping by a fraction of an inch. "Good."
"Mr. Romano!"
Victor Crane scurried forward on his hands and knees, clutching a linen napkin against a shallow scratch on his cheek. His eyes were wide with a bizarre mix of terror and righteous anger as he pointed a trembling finger at Harper.
"Mr. Romano, I apologize profoundly! Miss Ellison’s behavior was completely unacceptable! She struck you—she physically assaulted you in front of the guests! I will handle her disciplinary action personally—she will be removed from the estate immediately and handed over to—"
"For what?" Damian interrupted.
Victor stopped mid-sentence, his mouth hanging open like a landed fish. "Sir?"
"For what, Victor?" Damian repeated, his voice dropping into a deadly whisper that brought a fresh wave of silence to the ruined dining room.
"She... she struck your hand, sir," Victor stammered, his courage evaporating beneath Damian’s glacial stare. "She defied an order."
Damian slowly turned his head to look at the destroyed chair. The heavy oak frame had been shattered into matchsticks; the high-caliber round had punched a crater into the marble floor directly beneath where a person’s torso would have rested.
"A bullet nearly struck her," Damian said softly.
"Of course, sir, but the protocol—"
"There is no protocol for this," Damian growled, rising to his feet and pulling Harper up with him. He kept one firm hand on the small of her back, steadying her as her knees threatened to buckle. "Nobody disciplines her. If I hear so much as a whisper of punishment regarding Miss Ellison, I will hold you personally responsible, Victor. Do you understand me?"
Victor paled, bowing his head so low his forehead nearly touched the ruined rug. "Yes, Mr. Romano. Understood."
Damian turned back to Gabriel, who was now standing by the lowering steel shutters. The heavy metal panels slid down over the windows with a grinding mechanical hum, sealing the dining room from the cold night.
"How many?" Damian asked.
"We confirmed one shooter on the north ridge," Gabriel replied, his tone clipped. "Thermal imaging didn't pick up anyone else."
"You told me the first shooter was down," Damian said, his eyes narrowing. "Which means you assumed there was a second."
"We're searching the perimeter now," Gabriel said, though his jaw was set tight.
"Search again," Damian commanded. "And search deeper. They didn't aim for me."
Harper gasped softly, her hand flying to her mouth.
The guests who were still dusting off their clothes froze once more.
Damian turned his gaze down to Harper. His dark eyes held a strange, terrifying clarity.
Everyone else in the room had assumed the sniper was aiming for the head of the Romano family. It was the logical assumption; Damian had a hundred enemies, any one of whom would gladly pay millions to see him dead.
But Damian knew the geometry of his own dining room. He knew where he was standing when the bullet hit.
The sniper hadn't missed Damian Romano.
The sniper had been aiming directly for the empty chair.
And if Harper hadn't resisted him—if she hadn't ripped her arm back and slapped his hand away—she would have been sitting in that chair when the heavy round tore through the glass.
She would have died carrying an empty dinner plate.
Harper hugged her arms tightly around her chest, shivering violently as the adrenaline began to bleed out of her system, leaving behind a hollow, cold terror.
"Take Miss Ellison to the private quarters on the third floor," Damian ordered a female guard standing near the door. "Assign two men to her door. She doesn't step out until I say so."
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"Mr. Romano, I have a room in the staff quarters—" Harper began.
"Not tonight," Damian said, his voice leaving no room for argument. He stepped closer to her, his shadow swallowing her completely. "Tonight, you stay where I can see you."
