Chapter 7 - The Blood on the Silk
The master bedroom was larger than the entire apartment I had rented during my years with Derek.
Dark walnut wood covered the walls, broken only by floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the misty woods behind the estate.
A massive king-sized bed dominated the center of the room, flanked by heavy bronze lamps casting warm pools of amber light across an imported Persian rug.
At the far corner of the room stood a walk-in safe, its heavy steel wheel slightly ajar, revealing stacks of dark leather binders and electronic equipment.
Roman locked the heavy bedroom door behind us with a solid, mechanical bolt that echoed like a prison cell slamming shut.
He shed his tailored jacket and tossed it casually over the back of an armchair.
His white shirt was damp against his broad back, showing the muscular contours of his shoulders and the dark leather straps of his holster.
I stood in the middle of the room, feeling completely alien, clutching my small satin clutch against my stomach.
The reality of what had transpired over the last four hours was crashing through my defenses like floodwater.
My sister’s wedding was tomorrow afternoon.
My mother would undoubtedly blame me for the terror at the country club.
Derek was ruined, the mob was hunting Roman, and I was standing in the private sanctuary of a man who commanded an army of killers.
“Take off the dress,” Roman said calmly as he unfastened his cufflinks and set them on the marble dresser.
The command froze the blood in my veins.
My eyes snapped to him, wide with sudden panic.
“What?”
Roman turned around, catching my panicked expression, and let out a long, heavy breath through his nose.
“You have brick dust in the silk, and the hem is torn, Sadi.”
He pointed toward the connecting door on the left.
“There is an en-suite bath through there. The tub is drawn with heated mineral water. Wash the country club out of your pores.”
The relief was so dizzying that my knees buckled slightly.
Roman was at my side in half a step, catching my elbow before I could lose my balance.
“Easy,” he murmured, his voice softer than I had ever heard it.
His fingers lingered against the bare skin of my upper arm.
I looked down at myself—the lush emerald satin that Elena had pinned to my body, the broad curve of my hips, the fullness of my chest that had always made department store dresses pull and tear.
“I must look like a mess,” I whispered, staring at my reflection in the dark dressing mirror.
My eyeliner was smudged, my hair was half-unpinned, and the dress had lost its crisp, regal perfection.
“You look like a woman who survived a war zone without dropping her chin,” Roman said quietly, his eyes fixed on my reflection beside him.
He reached for the zipper at the back of my neck.
His fingertips were warm, sending a sharp, electric jolt across my skin as they brushed against my spine.
The heavy metal zipper slid down with a slow, smooth sound, parting the thick satin fabric.
The cold air of the bedroom touched my bare back, making my skin pebble with goosebumps.
I instinctively reached to hold the front of the dress against my chest, old habits of modesty and self-consciousness screaming inside my head.
I had spent seven years hiding my body behind loose clothing, terrified of the mocking glances of people like Derek and my mother.
Roman didn't step away.
He remained standing directly behind me, his hands resting lightly on the tops of my shoulders, his thumbs pressing into the tight knots of my neck muscles.
In the mirror, I saw him looking at the broad line of my shoulders, the soft curve of my back, and the full swell of my hips.
There was no disgust in his dark eyes.
There was no mocking superiority.
There was only a dark, simmering, possessive hunger that made the air in the room grow suffocatingly thin.
“Go take your bath, Little Bird,” he whispered against my ear, his voice rough around the edges.
“Before I forget that you are terrified of me.”
I didn't answer.
I gathered the emerald satin against my chest with trembling hands and slipped quickly through the double doors into the bathroom.
The bathroom was a temple of heated white marble and steam.
A massive clawfoot soaking tub was filled with steaming water scented with lavender and sea salt.
I dropped the ruined green dress onto the floor tiles, stepping out of it like an old skin I had outgrown.
I climbed into the scalding water, sinking down until the heat swallowed my shoulders, and finally let the tears fall.
I wept for the twenty-eight years of feeling like a ghost.
I wept for the little girl who sat in dressing rooms crying while her mother bought Chloe beautiful sundresses.
I wept for the humiliating years spent cleaning up Derek’s messes while he told his friends I was just a placeholder until he made partner.
And I wept because I knew, with absolute, terrifying certainty, that I could never go back to being ordinary again.
Once a man like Roman Rossi pulls you into his orbit, the rest of the world turns to gray dust.
Thirty minutes later, wrapped in a thick, oversized black terrycloth robe that smelled distinctly of Roman’s cedarwood cologne, I opened the bathroom door.
The bedroom lights were dimmed, leaving only the soft glow of a reading lamp beside the massive bed.
Roman was sitting on the edge of the mattress, his shirt unbuttoned to his navel, his head resting in his hands.
Beside him on the nightstand lay a clean white cotton pad and a bottle of medical antiseptic.
Across his broad right shoulder blade was a deep, angry crimson gash where a flying shard of terrace balustrade had sliced through his shirt.
Blood was dripping slowly down his back, staining the crisp white linen of the bedsheet.
He hadn't mentioned a single word about being injured during the entire drive back.
He had spent the entire journey holding my hand, calming my panic, and issuing orders to secure the city while his own flesh was torn open.
“You’re bleeding,” I said, my voice cutting through the quiet room.
Roman lifted his head, his face drawn with fatigue.
“It’s just stone shrapnel. A scratch.”
“That isn't a scratch, Roman. It needs to be cleaned and dressed before it gets infected.”
I didn't wait for his permission.
The domestic instinct that had carried me through years of hard labor took over, banishing the fear.
I crossed the room, picked up the bottle of antiseptic and the gauze pads from the nightstand, and sat down on the edge of the mattress directly behind him.
“This is going to sting,” I warned, my voice steadying.
“I’ve had worse, Sadi,” he grunted softly.
I pressed the soaked cotton against the jagged wound.
His back muscles clenched like steel cables under my fingers, but not a single groan escaped his lips.
As I wiped away the dark blood, my fingers lightly traced the topography of his skin.
His back was a map of past violence—faint, silver lines from knife blades, a rounded, puckered scar near his ribs from an old bullet, and the hard, unyielding cords of muscle built from decades of survival.
“Why did you really come to the kitchen last night?” I asked quietly, pressing a fresh square of sterile gauze against his shoulder.
The question had been eating at my heart ever since the first shot was fired on the terrace.
Roman stayed quiet for so long that I thought he was going to ignore me entirely.
The silence stretched between us, filled only by the wind rattling the heavy glass panes of the high windows.
“For three months, I have watched you clean this estate,” Roman finally spoke, his voice low, vibrating through his chest.
“Every other servant in this house walks with their head bowed because they are terrified of my power.”
He turned his head slightly, his sharp profile outlined by the warm amber lamplight.
“You walked with your head bowed because you believed you were worthless.”
His words felt like a needle passing through an unhealed wound.
“You made my coffee exactly right, you scrubbed until your fingers bled, and you apologized to empty rooms whenever you dropped a spoon.”
Roman turned around on the bed, facing me completely, his bare chest inches from my wrapped robe.
He reached out and took my hands, pulling them away from the medical tape, holding my soap-calloused fingers between his large, scarred palms.
“A woman with eyes like yours, with a heart that endures what yours has endured, should never apologize for taking up space in this world.”
He leaned in closer, his dark gaze searching my face with an honesty that terrified me far more than any assassin’s rifle.
“I went to that kitchen last night because I was tired of watching you break yourself for people who aren't fit to sweep your footsteps.”
My breath hitched, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
Before I could answer, the secure phone on the bedside table buzzed with a sharp, vibrating tone that shattered the intimacy of the room.
Roman reached over and tapped the screen.
A high-resolution photograph popped up on the display.
It was an encrypted legal filing bearing the seal of the Cook County District Attorney’s Office, scheduled for emergency submission at eight o'clock tomorrow morning.
At the top of the indictment, highlighted in bold black text, was the name:
Derek Vance – Grand Larceny, Wire Fraud, and Conspiracy.
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And directly beneath it, listed as the primary material witness and co-conspirator facing immediate federal custody, was another name that made all the air leave my body in a suffocating gasp:
Chloe Miller.
