Chapter 8 - The Nightmare
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It happened at 2:00 AM.
Nora was sleeping in the guest suite—Arthur had insisted they maintain separate bedrooms until they were officially married—when a piercing scream echoed through the silent mansion.
She threw off her covers, sprinting down the dark hallway toward the children’s wing. She didn’t wait for Arthur or the guards. She burst into Mia’s room.
The ten-year-old girl was thrashing in her bed, tangled in the heavy sheets, screaming hysterically.
“No! The fire! Mom, watch out!”
She was trapped in the memory of the car bomb.
Nora dropped to her knees beside the bed. She didn’t grab the girl—she knew better than to restrain someone in the middle of a panic attack. Instead, she started singing. It was a low, steady lullaby her own grandmother used to sing to her before she was thrust into the mafia world.
“Mia,” Nora said softly, her voice calm and grounding. “You’re in your bed. You are safe. The fire is gone. Breathe with me.”
Mia’s eyes snapped open, wild and terrified. She looked at Nora, her chest heaving.
For a moment, Nora thought the girl would push her away. But instead, Mia launched herself forward, burying her face into Nora’s neck and sobbing uncontrollably.
Nora wrapped her arms tightly around the small, shaking girl, rocking her back and forth in the dark.
“I’ve got you,” Nora whispered, pressing a kiss to Mia’s hair. “I’ve got you, sweetheart.”
From the doorway, a shadow watched them.
Arthur stood in the hall, his gun lowered by his side, his chest tight. He had spent three years trying to comfort his daughter after those nightmares, and he had failed every single time.
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He watched this woman—a woman he had bought just hours ago—soothe his broken child with a tenderness he didn’t know still existed in their world.
For the first time since his wife died, Arthur Costa felt a glimmer of hope.
