Chapter 4 - Collateral Damage
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Lena stared at him, the whiskey turning to ash on her tongue.
"What do you mean I can't go home?" she asked, her voice rising in panic. "I gave you the vial. I told you who did it. I have nothing else to do with this!"
Victor leaned back in his chair, his expression hardening into the cold, calculating mask of a syndicate boss.
"Leon Mercer did not act alone," Victor explained, his voice low and clinical. "Cyanide hits are messy. They require funding, access, and backing. Leon was an underboss. To betray me, he had to have the support of a rival family promising him my throne."
"That has nothing to do with me," Lena pleaded, gripping the edge of the sofa.
"It has everything to do with you," Victor corrected sharply. "You just humiliated the conspirators in front of three hundred witnesses. You ruined a coup that took months to plan. By tomorrow morning, every enemy I have in this city will know that a waitress named Lena Hart saved my life and exposed their operative."
He stood up, pacing toward the floor-to-ceiling windows. The city lights cast long, menacing shadows across his broad shoulders.
"If you walk out of this hotel and return to whatever apartment you live in, you will be dead before sunrise. They will torture you to find out what else you saw, and then they will erase you."
The reality of his words hit her like a physical blow. She couldn't breathe. She was just a girl who worked double shifts to pay off her mother’s medical debts. She didn't belong in a mafia war.
"So what happens to me?" she asked, her voice cracking.
Victor turned back to face her. The terrifying, undeniable power radiating from him seemed to fill the entire penthouse.
"You belong to me now," he said.
It wasn't a romantic declaration. It was a statement of absolute ownership and protection.
"I will relocate you to my compound in the Hamptons," Victor continued. "You will be guarded twenty-four hours a day by my most loyal men. You will disappear from the public record. In exchange for your life, I will provide you with absolute safety."
"I have a life!" Lena shouted, standing up, the fear briefly morphing into anger. "I have a mother in a care facility! I have rent! I have debts!"
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Victor crossed the room in three strides, stopping inches away from her. The anger drained out of her instantly as she was forced to look up into his dark, furious eyes.
"Your debts are erased. Your mother's facility will be paid in full for the next ten years. But you," he whispered, leaning so close she could feel the heat of his breath, "are coming with me. Because I protect what is mine. And right now, your pulse is beating because I am allowing it."
