Chapter 3 - Bloodline Protocol
The heavy study door rattled with three sharp, impatient knocks.
Adrian did not flinch, but his right hand drifted instinctively toward the interior pocket of his tuxedo jacket.
“Adrian?”
The voice outside was smooth, cultured, and laced with the sharp edge of entitled impatience.
“Open the door, Adrian, Uncle Victor is asking why the head of security pulled three tables away from the banquet hall.”
Evelyn’s eyes narrowed into slits of cold ice.
“Julian,” she whispered, her lips barely moving.
Adrian stepped past Mia, his broad shoulder lightly brushing against hers as he approached the entrance.
He did not unlock the deadbolt immediately.
He turned back to Mia, his gaze dropping to her stained uniform and the pale, terrified expression on her face.
“Do not speak,” Adrian ordered in a whisper that brooked no argument.
“Do not look at him, do not answer any question, do not exist unless I tell you to breathe.”
Mia swallowed the dryness in her throat and nodded once.
Adrian turned the brass key and pulled the heavy door open just wide enough to block the view of the room with his frame.
Outside stood a man who shared the Russo high cheekbones, but none of Adrian’s disciplined power.
Julian Russo was thirty-eight, dressed in a midnight-blue velvet dinner jacket, his blond hair slicked back with expensive pomade.
Behind him stood his mother, Eleanor Russo, draped in white mink and dripping with diamonds that clattered against her wrists like small chains.
“What is going on in here, Adrian?” Eleanor asked, her sharp eyes darting over Adrian’s shoulder, trying to pierce the gloom of the study.
“The guests are talking, people are saying some clumsy girl from the catering staff broke heirloom crystal and then made a scene.”
Julian leaned forward, a thin, patronizing smirk curling on his lips.
“Grandmother is missing from her own anniversary dinner, Adrian, you know how fragile her heart is after what happened to Luke.”
“My heart is far sturdier than your balance sheet, Julian,” Evelyn’s voice boomed from the shadows with the force of a naval cannon.
Julian’s smirk vanished instantly.
He stepped back as Evelyn emerged into the warm light of the hallway, her chin raised, her walking stick striking the parquet floor with rhythmic authority.
Eleanor gasped, her painted eyebrows climbing toward her hairline as her gaze dropped to Evelyn’s hand.
Evelyn was holding the silver cufflink openly between her fingers.
“Where did you find that?” Eleanor asked, her voice dropping an octave into pure, naked suspicion.
“Luke lost that cufflink six months before the accident, he searched the entire penthouse in Manhattan for it.”
Julian’s eyes flickered toward the interior of the study, catching sight of Mia standing near the mahogany desk.
His eyes lingered on her swollen waistline beneath the dark apron, and a flicker of something dark and dangerous passed across his features.
“Who is the girl, Adrian?” Julian asked, his voice losing its playful edge entirely.
“The girl is under my personal protection,” Adrian replied coldly.
Julian let out a short, incredulous laugh.
“Your protection?”
“She is a catering temp who probably lifted that silver piece off Luke’s dresser while cleaning his apartment!”
“Watch your tongue, Julian,” Adrian said, taking a single step into the hallway.
Adrian was not taller than Julian by much, but the physical menace radiating from him was palpable.
Julian took half a step backward, his jaw tightening defensively.
“We have a board meeting on Monday morning to finalize the reallocation of Luke’s voting shares,” Eleanor stated, her voice trembling with barely concealed outrage.
“You cannot bring street trash into the family wing and disrupt the succession plan, Adrian, Alexander’s will was very specific about illegitimate claims.”
“Alexander’s will protected Alexander’s blood,” Evelyn snapped, her voice cutting through Eleanor’s protests like a blade through silk.
“And we are going to find out whose blood is inside this room right now.”
Evelyn turned back toward the study, motioning for Mia to remain where she was.
“Call Dr. Sterling,” Evelyn commanded Adrian.
Eleanor stepped forward, her mink coat slipping from one shoulder.
“Sterling is the private family physician, you don't call him for a servant girl!”
“Dr. Sterling will be here in twenty minutes,” Adrian said, ignoring his aunt completely as he pulled his phone from his pocket.
“And he will bring the rapid DNA sequencing kit from the downtown clinic.”
Julian’s face went completely white beneath his sunbed tan.
“DNA?”
“Are you out of your mind?”
Julian pointed an accusatory finger past Adrian toward Mia.
“Luke has been in the ground for three months!”
“You cannot establish paternity on a corpse with some random girl who walked in off the street with a stolen trinket!”
“We have Luke’s preserved blood samples from the toxicology panel after the crash,” Adrian said quietly, his thumb already typing a message onto his screen.
“Stored at seventy-eight degrees below zero in the private vault at St. Jude’s Memorial.”
Eleanor’s hand flew to her throat, her diamonds clicking frantically.
“That sample was supposed to be destroyed after the coroner’s inquest was closed!”
Adrian looked up from his phone, his dark eyes fixing Eleanor with a gaze that made the older woman flinch.
“I am the executor of Luke’s estate, Aunt Eleanor.”
“Nothing gets destroyed unless I sign the authorization order.”
Adrian stepped back into the study and prepared to close the door in their faces.
“Wait,” Mia spoke up from the center of the room.
Her voice was not loud, but it possessed a clear, ringing clarity that made all four Russos turn toward her.
Mia stepped forward into the pool of light beneath the chandelier, her hands trembling, but her chin held high.
“I am not an opportunistic thief.”
She looked directly at Eleanor, whose mouth tightened into an ugly, venomous sneer.
“I didn't know his last name was Russo.”
“I didn't know he had a dime to his name until forty-five minutes ago.”
Mia looked from Eleanor to Julian, then finally to Adrian.
“I don't want your money, I don't want your company, and I certainly don't want to be inside this house.”
Mia began untying the strings of her apron with shaking fingers.
“I want to go home, I want to pack my things, and I want to grieve the man I loved without being treated like a criminal by people who didn't even notice he was hiding from them.”
She dropped the black apron onto the leather chair.
Julian sneered, stepping closer to the threshold.
“A very touching performance, little girl, but you don't get to walk away after planting a claim on forty percent of a multi-billion dollar enterprise.”
Adrian’s hand caught Julian by the lapels of his velvet dinner jacket with blinding, brutal speed.
He slammed Julian back against the corridor wall with a dull, heavy thud that knocked the breath from the older man’s lungs.
Eleanor shrieked in horror.
Adrian leaned in until his nose was an inch from Julian’s ear, his voice a lethal, vibrating growl.
“If you speak to the mother of Luke’s child again without my permission, Julian, I will throw you off the balcony into the fountain below.”
Julian gasped for air, his hands clutching frantically at Adrian’s iron grip.
“You’re crazy... Adrian, she’s lying...”
Adrian shoved Julian away, sending him stumbling into Eleanor’s arms, and slammed the heavy oak door shut.
The brass deadbolt turned with a final, heavy snap.
Adrian turned back toward Mia, his chest rising and falling slowly as he adjusted the cuffs of his tuxedo.
The rage that had flared against Julian was gone, replaced once more by cold, calculating pragmatism.
“You are not going home, Mia,” Adrian said calmly.
Mia crossed her arms over her chest, her eyes blazing with stubborn defiance.
“You cannot hold me hostage in this house, Mr. Russo.”
Adrian walked over to the desk, pulled a silver fountain pen from the stand, and set it beside a blank sheet of paper.
“I am not holding you hostage to protect my family’s money, Mia.”
May you like
Adrian met her gaze with an intensity that made the breath catch in her throat.
“I am holding you here because if Julian or his mother reach your apartment before my men do, you and that child will be dead before sunrise.”
