Chapter 6 - Blood on the Marble
The rain returned after dark, washing over the city in freezing sheets.
Vivienne refused to stay in the bedroom. By eleven o'clock, she had migrated down to the estate’s ground-floor library—a cavernous, wood-paneled sanctuary filled with thousands of leather-bound volumes and illuminated by a roaring stone fireplace.
She paced the length of the Persian rug, her hands jammed into the pockets of an oversized cardigan she had borrowed from the guest wardrobe. The silence of the house was suffocating. Every ticking clock sounded like a countdown.
Suddenly, the security lights along the perimeter flared from soft amber to blinding white.
An alarm didn't ring—the estate was too sophisticated for sirens—but the discreet red LEDs along the baseboards pulsed twice. Down the hallway, heavy footsteps echoed across the marble floor of the foyer.
Vivienne froze, her breath catching in her throat.
The double doors of the library swung open. Roman entered first.
His charcoal overcoat was gone. His white dress shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, the sleeves rolled to his elbows, and the crisp fabric across his left ribs was soaked in deep crimson.
Behind him, Lev followed, carrying a medical kit and looking entirely unbothered despite a dark bruise swelling over his right cheekbone.
“Roman!” Vivienne rushed forward, forgetting every rule of caution she had ever learned. “You’re bleeding.”
“It’s not his blood,” Lev grunted, setting the medical box on a polished mahogany side table. “Well... mostly not his.”
Roman waved Lev off with an irritated gesture, sinking into a deep leather armchair by the fire. He hissed slightly through his teeth as the movement strained his side.
“Lev, secure the south gate,” Roman commanded, his voice tight. “Make sure the perimeter sweep is finished before the morning shift.”
“Understood, boss.” Lev nodded once, cast a quick, assessing look at Vivienne, and vanished back down the hallway, closing the heavy doors behind him.
Vivienne stood over Roman, her hands trembling as she looked at the blood staining his shirt. “Sit still. Don't move.”
She knelt beside the chair, flipping open the latch of the medical kit. Having spent four years patching up her own sprains and cuts after Nathan’s ‘clumsy accidents,’ she knew how to handle antiseptic and sterile gauze.
“You shouldn't look at this,” Roman said, his voice rough as his gray eyes locked onto hers.
“Shut up,” she snapped, her hands surprisingly steady as she pulled a pair of trauma shears from the kit and cut through the ruined fabric of his shirt.
Beneath the blood, a jagged four-inch laceration carved along his ribs—shallow, but bleeding heavily. The skin around it was bruised purple from the impact of a blunt weapon.
“A knife?” she asked, soaking a sterile pad with antiseptic.
“Broken bottle,” Roman grunted, his jaw locking tight as she pressed the pad directly against the wound. He didn't cry out; he merely gripped the arms of the leather chair until his knuckles turned bone-white. “Marco Moretti lacked manners. Nathan Hale was hiding under a poker table while his allies fought.”
“Nathan was there?” she asked, looking up into his face.
Their faces were inches apart. She could see the dark stubble shadowing his jaw, the silver flecks in his pale eyes, the sharp flare of pain he was forcing himself to suppress.
“He was,” Roman whispered, his breath warm against her cheek. “He tried to offer me fifty percent of Hale Financial’s offshore assets if I handed you over to him tonight.”
Vivienne felt a cold wave of disgust wash over her. “And what did you say?”
Roman’s hand came up, his warm, calloused fingers closing gently around the side of her neck, his thumb tracing the soft curve of her jawline. The touch was completely unexpected—firm, possessive, yet devoid of the cruelty she had known from Nathan.
“I broke his arm,” Roman said softly. “And I told him that if his name crosses my radar again, I will burn Hale Financial to the ash line with him locked inside the vault.”
Vivienne stared at him, her heart slamming against her ribs. No one had ever defended her like this. No one had ever bled for her.
“You’re insane,” she whispered, her eyes watering. “He has money, Roman. He has political connections. His father—”
“His father is a bureaucrat who buys judges,” Roman interrupted, his thumb brushing a tear from her cheek. “I buy the men who bury the judges. Do not worry about Nathan Hale. He is a dying dog thrashing in a cage he built for himself.”
Vivienne swallowed hard, forcing herself to focus on the wound. She reached for the surgical needle and thread inside the kit.
“This is going to hurt,” she warned.
“I have endured worse,” Roman said, never taking his eyes off her face.
She worked quickly, her hands moving with the precision of an artist restoring delicate canvas. With every stitch, Roman didn't flinch, his gaze remaining locked onto hers with an intensity that made the room feel unbearably small.
When she tied off the final knot and taped a clean bandage over his ribs, she sat back on her heels on the Persian rug, her hands covered in his blood.
Roman leaned forward slowly, ignoring the pull of the stitches. He took her hands in his, uncaring of the red stains, and pulled her gently upward until she was standing between his knees.
“You are remarkably brave, Vivienne,” he murmured.
“I’m terrified,” she admitted honestly, her voice barely audible over the crackle of the fireplace.
“Courage is not the absence of fear,” Roman said, his voice dropping into that dark, hypnotic register. “It is looking the monster in the eye and refusing to kneel.”
He raised one of her hands to his lips, pressing a slow, deliberate kiss against her knuckles. The heat of it shot straight through her veins, melting the last remnants of ice around her heart.
Before she could speak, the landline phone on the library desk began to chime—a secure, encrypted line that rarely rang.
Roman released her hand with visible reluctance, standing up and crossing the room to answer it.
He listened for three seconds, his face hardening back into cold granite.
“When?” Roman demanded.
A pause.
“Understood. Lock down the downtown vault. I’m coming.”
He slammed the receiver down and turned to Vivienne, his gray eyes burning with fury.
May you like
“Nathan didn't go to the hospital,” Roman said. “He just executed an emergency liquidation of Hale Financial. And he’s heading toward the private airfield with something that belongs to you.”
***
