Chapter 6 - The Palermo Conundrum
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"I am not a myth, Mr. Ricci," Wren said coldly, her hands hovering near her waist, ready to strike if he made a aggressive movement. "I am a woman trying to stay alive. And you are making that very difficult."
Damian didn't stop advancing until he was standing less than two feet away from her. He was tall, broad, and exuded a terrifying aura of power, but Wren didn't step back an inch.
"Why were you kneeling?" Damian asked softly, his gaze dropping to her injured hands. "A woman who can drop a capo in two seconds let that idiot Dario humiliate her in front of three hundred people. Why?"
"Because a maid who dodges a capo gets noticed," Wren replied flatly. "And being noticed gets me killed."
"Killed by whom?"
"By the same people who put a bullet in your shoulder five years ago," she said, her eyes flashing with old fire. "The Donati syndicate destroyed my family. They burned my home to the ground. I escaped to America with a new name and a new face. I don't want your war, Damian. I don't want your kingdom. I just want to be left alone."
Damian looked at her, his expression softening into something fierce and possessive.
"You saved my life, Wren," he murmured, using her real name for the first time. "When I was bleeding out in that alley, you could have walked away. Why didn't you?"
"Because the Donati were holding the knife," Wren said quietly. "And I never let a Donati finish a job."
Damian raised his hand slowly, offering her the silver lighter. "Take it back. It belongs to you."
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Wren looked at the lighter in his palm. Before her hand could reach out to take it, a sudden, sharp crack echoed from the floor below—followed immediately by the deafening roar of automatic gunfire.
The glass windows of the corridor shattered inward in a shower of deadly sparks.
