Chapter 11 - The Sovereign Summit
The grand ballroom of the Westchester safehouse was transformed into a fortress of glass and steel.
The foreign lords arrived with maximum security, their heavily armed guards lining the hallways, their faces tense with the knowledge that they were stepping into the lion's den. The air was thick with the scent of expensive cologne, old paper, and the unmistakable metallic tang of hidden weapons.
I didn't wear a hospital gown. My mother and the nurses had dressed me in a loose, tailored emerald silk gown that fell elegantly over my massive stomach. My hair was brushed back, my face pale but sharp, my lips painted a deep, bloody red. I sat in a high-backed velvet chair at the head of the long mahogany table, looking like a queen waiting for her subjects.
Adrian stood behind me, his hands resting lightly on the back of my chair, his gray eyes scanning the room like a hawk watching a field of mice.
Nikolai Volkov, a massive man with a scarred neck and a heavy fur coat, was the first to speak. He slammed a heavy leather folder onto the table.
"We do not come here to play games, Blackwood," Volkov growled in his thick Russian accent. "Your father is dead. Your syndicate is bleeding money. The girl is a commoner. The babies she carries belong to the world now. Sign the Accord, or we take this house by storm."
Jean-Luc Moreau smiled, a thin, aristocratic curve of his lips as he adjusted his gold cufflinks. "It is a simple matter of logistics, Madame Carter. A woman of your... modest background cannot possibly manage the weight of three global empires. Let us take the burden from your hands."
I let out a slow, deliberate breath. The contraction inside me was building, a white-hot wave of agony that threatened to rip me apart from the inside out, but I didn't let my eyes waver from Moreau's face.
"A burden?" I spoke, my voice echoing clearly through the silent room. "I spent four years working eighteen-hour shifts at a diner where men like you would leave a two-dollar tip and think they owned the world. I survived a mother's cancer, a landlord's threats, and a cartel's hit squad before I even knew who Adrian Blackwood was."
I stood up slowly, using the edges of the table to support my weight. Every eye in the room locked onto my swollen stomach.
"You think you are kings because you inherited a name and a few thousand soldiers," I said, leaning forward, my gaze boring into Volkov. "But the children inside me were built by survival. They aren't pieces of meat to be divided on a map. They are the rulers of this city. And if you think you can take them from me, you better be ready to kill every single person in this room, because I will personally choke the life out of you before you touch their skin."
Volkov’s eyes widened in surprise, a sudden flash of respect breaking through his hardened features. But Moreau’s smile vanished completely.
"A beautiful speech, girl," Moreau sneered, reaching toward his inner jacket pocket. "But words do not stop bullets."
CRACK.
The sound of a single gunshot exploded through the ballroom. Moreau’s forehead split open, a neat red hole appearing between his eyes as his body slumped forward onto the mahogany table, his blood spilling across the white pages of the Trinity Accord.
Adrian held his smoking Kimber .45, his face completely expressionless.
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"The Summit is over," Adrian said, his voice dropping into a deadly whisper. "Anyone who isn't out of my house in sixty seconds will join Monsieur Moreau in the garden."
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