Chapter 5 - A Gilded Cage
The DeLuca estate sat high above the city limits on a heavily wooded bluff overlooking Lake Michigan.
It was surrounded by ten-foot wrought-iron fencing topped with discreet razor wire and security sensors. The house itself was a sprawling modern fortress of black granite, reinforced glass, and cedar wood, blending seamlessly into the snowy cliffside.
Vivienne stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows of the second-floor guest suite, holding a warm cup of black tea that one of Roman’s staff had brought her twenty minutes ago.
Down in the courtyard below, men in dark tactical jackets moved between armored SUVs with practiced discipline. Radios crackled faintly through the heavy double-paned glass. This wasn’t an estate; it was a military command post disguised as a billionaire’s sanctuary.
The heavy oak door behind her opened without a knock.
Roman stepped inside, having traded his suit jacket for a charcoal cashmere sweater with the sleeves pushed up to his forearms, revealing corded muscle and a dark, intricate tattoo wrapping around his right wrist—a stylized viper coiled around a dagger.
“You’ve been standing at that window for an hour,” Roman said, leaning against the doorframe.
“I’m trying to figure out if I’m a guest or a prisoner,” Vivienne said, turning to face him.
“The doors aren't locked from the outside,” he answered calmly. “You have access to the gardens, the library, and the dining room. If you wish to leave, Lev will drive you wherever you want to go.”
“And if I leave, how long before Nathan’s friends find me?”
Roman met her gaze without flinching. “Forty-eight hours. Perhaps less.”
Vivienne set her teacup down on the glass side table with a soft clatter. “Then it’s not much of a choice, is it?”
Roman pushed off the doorframe and walked toward her. He moved with an effortless predatory grace that demanded attention. Every instinct she possessed screamed that this man was vastly more dangerous than Nathan could ever dream of being. Nathan was cruelty and pettiness; Roman was raw, calculated authority.
“Choice is a luxury in this city, Miss Cross,” Roman murmured, stopping two feet from her. “I did not bring you here to cage you. I brought you here because Nathan Hale has sold his soul to the Moretti family, and the Morettis do not take prisoners.”
“Then why protect me?” she demanded, stepping directly into his space. She was tired of deferring to powerful men. “You don't know me. You found me in a parking lot. You have my notes on Nathan’s accounts—you can destroy his firm without keeping me in your house. What do you actually want, Roman?”
Roman looked down at her. His eyes were unreadable, but a faint muscle feathered in his jaw.
“My mother was an immigrant,” Roman said quietly, his voice dropping into a cadence that carried genuine history. “She worked seventeen hours a day cleaning floors in the Gold Coast towers. When my father was taken by his rivals thirty years ago, three men came to our apartment to take what was left of our family.”
Vivienne went still.
“She didn’t cry,” Roman continued, his gaze drifting slightly past her toward the snowy trees outside. “She didn’t beg. She broke a glass pitcher against the sink and held them off until the neighborhood patrol heard the commotion. She died four years later from exhaustion, but she never bowed her head to any man in this city.”
He looked back down into Vivienne’s eyes, his expression carved from stone.
“Last night, Nathan Hale had his hands on your throat, and you were crying from exhaustion,” Roman whispered. “Yet the moment he looked away, you reached for a weapon. You brought me financial accounts that could dismantle a two-hundred-million-dollar hedge fund because you refused to be a victim. I don't protect weak things, Vivienne. I protect things that have the will to survive.”
The air between them grew thick, charged with an electric tension that had nothing to do with fear. Vivienne felt the heat radiating from him, the sheer physical presence of a man who ruled by will alone.
“Nathan thinks he can buy anyone,” Vivienne said softly.
“He cannot buy me,” Roman said.
A sharp knock broke the silence. Lev appeared at the doorway, his face grim.
“Boss,” Lev said, glancing briefly at Vivienne before focusing on Roman. “Nathan Hale just arrived at the Moretti club in Little Italy. He’s with Marco Moretti and three of their enforcers. They just put out a bounty on Miss Cross’s vehicle.”
Roman’s eyes darkened into slate. The gentle cadence of his voice vanished, replaced by the lethal authority of a mob boss preparing for war.
“Did they verify the tag?” Roman asked.
“Yes, boss. They think she’s holed up in a motel near the docks.”
Roman turned to Vivienne. “Stay in this room. Do not open the doors for anyone other than Lev or myself.”
“Where are you going?” she asked, panic flaring again—not for herself, but unexpectedly, sharply, for him.
May you like
Roman pulled an ornate silver cufflink into place at his wrist. “Nathan wants to play games with monsters. It’s time he met the one that owns the city.”
***
