Chapter 4 - Blood and Steel
The night air outside was raw, smelling of damp earth, crushed pine needles, and salt spray from the sea.
Ryan DeMarco walked down the winding asphalt driveway without an umbrella or an overcoat.
His white shirt stood out starkly against the black shadows of the manicured hedge lines.
Two heavily armed estate guards fell into step behind him, keeping their weapons lowered but ready.
As Ryan approached the iron perimeter, the wrought-iron security gates swung open with a hydraulic hiss.
Across the narrow two-lane country road, the black sedan was still idling beneath the drooping branches.
The driver’s side door opened slowly, and Julian Vance stepped out onto the wet gravel.
Julian was tall, lean, and dressed in an expensive leather jacket that smelled of stale cologne and cigarettes.
He had the smug, arrogant posture of a man who had never faced a predator larger than himself.
“Can I help you, friend?” Julian called out casually, leaning his hip against the hood of his car.
“I’m just waiting for my girlfriend to finish her shift inside your fancy castle.”
Ryan stopped ten feet away, his hands resting loosely at his sides, completely relaxed.
“There are no girlfriends of yours on this property,” Ryan said, his voice quiet, almost bored.
Julian let out a dry, condescending chuckle and tossed his cigarette butt into the wet ditch.
“Look, buddy, I don’t know who you are, but Natalie Brooks belongs to me.”
“She ran off with some personal property of mine, and she’s carrying my kid.”
“I’ve got legal rights to that child, and I’m not leaving this gate without her.”
Ryan did not blink.
He did not raise his voice or shift his balanced stance.
“You have five seconds to turn this vehicle around and drive until your fuel tank runs dry,” Ryan said.
Julian’s face twisted into an ugly, sneering grin as he reached toward his back waistband.
“You think because you live in a big house you can tell me what to do with my woman?” Julian spat.
Before Julian’s fingers could clear the hem of his leather jacket, Ryan moved with terrifying, explosive speed.
He closed the distance in a fraction of a second, his heavy boot crashing into Julian’s kneecap.
A sickening crunch echoed across the quiet country road as the bone buckled inward under the impact.
Julian let out a shrill scream of agony, his legs giving out as he collapsed hard onto the gravel.
Before the man could hit the ground completely, Ryan’s left hand caught him by the throat.
Ryan slammed Julian violently against the metal frame of the sedan, denting the door with the force of the strike.
He reached behind Julian’s back, effortlessly slid a snub-nosed revolver from the man's waistband, and tossed it into the weeds.
Julian choked, clawing frantically at Ryan’s thick wrist, his face turning a deep, mottled purple.
Ryan leaned in close, his dark eyes cold, empty, and devoid of any human mercy.
“Listen to me very carefully, Julian,” Ryan whispered, his tone as calm as a graveyard at midnight.
“Natalie does not belong to you.”
“She never belonged to you.”
“If you ever come within fifty miles of this perimeter again, I will not call the police.”
“I will not hire lawyers.”
“I will feed you to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in six distinct pieces.”
“Do you understand the words coming out of my mouth?”
Julian nodded frantically, tears of absolute terror streaming down his pale, bruised cheeks.
Ryan released his throat, letting the man drop face-first into the mud like a sack of discarded trash.
“Get him in his car and make sure he drives until he hits state lines,” Ryan ordered the two guards behind him.
“If he slows down before the bridge, put a bullet through his engine block.”
“Understood, boss,” one of the guards answered, hauling the sobbing man up from the gravel.
Ryan turned on his heel and walked back through the iron gates as they ground shut behind him.
He looked down at his right hand; a split knuckle was bleeding slightly where it had clipped the car door.
He pulled a pristine white handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the crimson smear away with cold indifference.
Twenty minutes later, Ryan walked back into the eastern wing of the mansion.
Natalie was still standing by the window, her body rigid with tension, her eyes wide with terror.
When she saw Ryan enter, her gaze dropped immediately to the stained handkerchief in his hand.
“Did you kill him?” she whispered, her voice trembling violently.
“No,” Ryan answered, tossing the ruined handkerchief into a silver wastebasket by the door.
“He is alive.”
“He is currently driving west with a broken knee and the absolute certainty that he will die if he ever returns.”
Natalie sank onto the sofa, burying her face in her trembling hands as a sob escaped her throat.
For months, the terror of Julian finding her had been a suffocating weight on her chest.
Now, in less than half an hour, this terrifying man had dismantled her worst nightmare with cold violence.
Ryan stood near the fireplace, watching her shoulders shake as she wept out months of accumulated fear.
“Why did you do that?” she asked after her tears had finally begun to slow.
“You don't even know me.”
“You think I might be some imposter trying to steal your family's money.”
Ryan looked down into the unlit hearth, his expression shadowed and unreadable.
“My mother was an outsider who married into this family,” Ryan said, his voice dropping low.
“She thought she was marrying a prince.”
“She realized too late that she had married into a cage full of starving wolves.”
“I watched men like Julian control her every breath until she withered away into nothing.”
He looked back at Natalie, his gaze piercing and intensely personal.
“I swore a long time ago that I would never stand by and watch another woman be broken by a coward.”
Natalie looked up at him, seeing the deep, unhealed scars running through his hardened exterior.
“Victor wants that test,” she said softly, wiping the dampness from her cheeks.
“Victor wants control,” Ryan corrected her.
“He lost his daughter twenty-six years ago because he tried to dictate who she loved and how she lived.”
“He will try to do the exact same thing to you if you let him.”
Natalie stood up from the sofa, smoothing down her wrinkled black uniform.
“I won’t let him,” she said, her voice finding a steady, resolute strength she didn't know she possessed.
“I will take the DNA test tonight, Ryan.”
“On one non-negotiable condition.”
Ryan raised an eyebrow, waiting for her terms.
“You oversee the laboratory yourself,” Natalie demanded, stepping toward him.
“Victor does not get to tamper with the results.”
“And whatever the paper says, he does not get to make a single decision regarding my child.”
Ryan looked down at her small, determined face, a faint, rare ghost of a smile touching the corner of his mouth.
“You have a deal, Natalie,” he said softly.
May you like
He turned toward the door and opened it wide, calling out to the attorney waiting in the corridor.
“Arthur! Bring the kit back inside.”
