Chapter 14: The Empire Burns
Adrian stood over the bleeding assassin, breathing heavily. His expensive suit jacket was gone. His white shirt was soaked in sweat. He looked like an absolute madman.
He kicked the silenced pistol across the floor, out of reach.
Then, his wild, terrified eyes snapped to me.
“Claire,” Adrian choked out, dropping the heavy flashlight. He fell to his knees right in front of me, his shaking hands hovering over my arms, terrified to touch me. “Are you hurt? Did he touch you? God, Claire, please tell me you’re not hurt.”
“I’m fine,” I gasped, my entire body shaking so violently my teeth rattled. “Adrian, how did you… how did you get here?”
“I flew,” he whispered, pulling me into a crushing, desperate embrace. “I almost didn’t make it. I thought I lost you. I thought I lost you forever.”
I buried my face in his chest. For the first time in fifteen years, he wasn’t holding me like a possession. He was holding me like a man who had almost lost his oxygen.
The enforcer groaned on the floor, shifting slightly.
Adrian’s tenderness vanished instantly. The ruthless, terrifying boss of the Manhattan syndicate returned in a flash of pure violence.
He stood up, grabbed the assassin by the collar of his coat, and dragged him violently onto the porch, throwing him out into the freezing snow.
I stepped cautiously into the doorway, watching my husband.
Adrian pulled his cell phone from his pocket. He dialed a number and put it on speaker.
“Adrian?” Lucia Moretti’s voice echoed sharply through the phone. “It is incredibly late. Why are you calling?”
Adrian stared down at the bleeding hitman on the porch.
“Your trash is bleeding all over my wife’s porch, Mother,” Adrian said, his voice deadly quiet.
There was a sharp gasp on the other end of the line. The silence that followed was suffocating.
“Adrian, listen to me,” Lucia stammered, her arrogant facade finally cracking. “She is making you weak! The families are turning against us! I did what I had to do to protect our bloodline!”
“You didn’t protect anything,” Adrian snarled, his voice vibrating with absolute rage. “You just destroyed your only son.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I am done,” Adrian declared, looking directly at me as he spoke into the phone. “I am stepping down. Julian is now the acting boss of the Moretti family. You have your empire, Mother. It is completely yours. I hope the money keeps you warm, because you are dead to me.”
“You can’t do this!” Lucia screamed hysterically. “You are the king! You cannot walk away from this family over a pathetic woman!”
“Watch me,” Adrian whispered.
He hung up the phone and threw it violently into the freezing ocean waves crashing against the rocks below.
He turned around and looked at me. The wind was whipping his dark hair across his forehead. He looked completely exhausted. He looked stripped of all his terrifying power.
He just looked like a man.
“You gave it all up?” I asked, my voice trembling in disbelief. “The syndicate? The money? Your entire legacy?”
Adrian walked slowly up the porch steps. He stopped right in front of me.
“I gave up absolutely nothing that mattered, Claire,” he said softly.
He didn’t ask to come inside. He didn’t ask me to pack my bags. He just looked at me with an ocean of regret in his green eyes.
“The local police will be here in five minutes to pick up the trash,” Adrian said, gesturing to the unconscious man in the snow. “He won’t bother you ever again. Nobody from that life will.”
He turned to walk away into the freezing Maine night.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“To figure out who I am without a crown,” Adrian replied, not looking back. “You deserve a peaceful life, Claire. I’m going to make sure you get it.”
