Chapter 5 - An Offer of War
Three days passed in a strange, surreal golden haze.
For the first time in five years, I didn’t wake up to an alarm ringing at 4:30 AM. Lily’s color began to return thanks to the private medical team Roman had flown in; the toxins were finally being cleared from her blood by medications our Medicaid coverage had never approved.
The brothers refused to let me clean a single dish. Declan caught me wiping down a side table on Tuesday morning, took the cloth from my hand, tossed it into a fireplace, and handed me a cup of fresh espresso instead.
“You’re a guest, Maeve,” Declan had growled, his cracked ribs clearly on the mend. “Act like one before I lock you in the library with Gabriel’s boring first editions.”
Yet beneath the sudden luxury, a storm was brewing.
Armored vehicles patrolled the perimeter constantly. Heavily armed men in dark suits guarded the tree line. The mansion had transformed from an intimidating fortress into a heavily fortified bunker preparing for siege.
On Thursday night, unable to sleep, I wrapped myself in a cashmere shawl and walked down to Roman’s study. The light beneath the door was still burning at 2:00 AM.
I knocked softly.
“Enter.”
Roman was sitting behind his desk, surrounded by satellite maps, ledger books, and surveillance photographs. His tie was undone, his collar open, dark stubble shadowing his strong jawline.
When he saw me, his tired eyes softened. “Maeve. Why aren’t you sleeping? Is Lily in pain?”
“Lily is asleep. She ate three bowls of soup today,” I said, stepping into the room and closing the heavy oak doors behind me. “I came to see you.”
Roman leaned back in his leather chair, watching me with that dark, unblinking intensity that always made my heart skip a beat. “You shouldn't be wandering the halls at night. Even with the guards, the house isn't completely safe right now.”
“Because of Victor Moretti?”
Roman’s expression darkened. He slid a black envelope across the desk toward me. It was stamped with a crimson wax seal bearing the insignia of a roaring lion—the crest of the Moretti syndicate.
“An invitation arrived this evening,” Roman said coldly. “Moretti is hosting his annual winter gala tomorrow night at the Atlantic Club in downtown Boston. All five families will be there. The politicians, the police commissioner, the federal judges on his payroll.”
I picked up the heavy linen card. Written in elegant calligraphy were the names: *Roman, Declan, and Gabriel Falcone.*
Beneath the names was a handwritten postscript in dark black ink:
*Bring Clara’s girl. Let us settle the debt publicly, or I will raze your port terminals to the ground by dawn.*
My throat felt tight. “He wants me there.”
“He thinks he can humiliate us,” Roman said, rising from his chair. He walked slowly around the desk until he was standing directly in front of me. The scent of him—rich tobacco, cedar, and clean rain—wrapped around my senses like a vice. “Moretti believes that because you were our maid, you are our weakness. He thinks he can force me to choose between handing you over or losing thirty percent of my commercial shipping revenue.”
“Then give him the money,” I said immediately, looking up into his intense eyes. “Roman, you can’t risk your family for me. You paid Lily’s bills. You protected us. You don’t owe my mother anything more!”
Roman took a step closer, closing the distance between us until his chest was inches from mine. His hand came up, his warm, rough fingers sliding into the hair at the nape of my neck, his thumb tracing the line of my jawline with intoxicating slowness.
“You think this is about an old debt, Maeve?” he whispered, his voice dark and hypnotic.
My breath hitched. My heart hammered wildly against my ribs. “Isn’t it?”
“It was,” Roman murmured, his thumb lightly stroking the sensitive skin beneath my ear, sending shivers racing down my spine. “On the first day. When I thought you were just Clara’s daughter.”
His eyes dropped to my lips before rising back to meet mine with a burning, possessive fire that made my knees weak.
“Then I watched you sweep up Declan’s broken glass and demand overtime,” Roman continued softly. “I watched you tell Gabriel his threats were boring. I watched you throw a twenty-pound urn at an armed assassin without flinching. And I watched you nurse my brother when nobody else could make him sit still.”
His fingers tightened slightly in my hair, pulling me an inch closer.
“You are not a maid in this house, Maeve Carter,” Roman said, his voice absolute, filled with an authority that shook me to my core. “And you are not a pawn to be traded away for cargo ships. Tomorrow night, Victor Moretti will see that for himself.”
“How?” I whispered, my lips parting, barely able to breathe.
Roman’s lips curved into a lethal, breathtaking smile.
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“Tomorrow night, you don't enter the Atlantic Club as a debtor,” Roman said, his dark eyes gleaming with ruthless ambition. “You walk into that ballroom on my arm. As my queen.”
***
