Chapter 3 - The Anatomy of a Vanishing
Delphine’s jaw tightened until her teeth ached.
She refused to shrink back against the mahogany wall, even as Sloan’s imposing figure cast a dark shadow over her.
“This child belongs to me,” she said, her voice steady and unapologetic.
“Only me.”
Sloan let out a low, humorless laugh that held no trace of amusement.
“Nothing in this city belongs only to you, Delphine,” he said, leaning down until his lips were inches from her ear.
“You were my wife.”
“I divorced you,” she spat back, her hazel eyes flashing with defiance.
“I signed the papers, left them on your desk, and walked out.”
“I never signed them,” Sloan answered, his voice dropping to a dangerous, intimate murmur.
Delphine froze.
The air left her lungs as if she had been struck across the chest.
“What?”
“I tore them into pieces and burned them in the fireplace,” Sloan said smoothly, his eyes never leaving hers.
“You are still Delphine Marchetti.”
“You are still my wife under the law, under God, and under the rules of my family.”
Delphine felt the room tilt beneath her feet.
Three years of hiding.
Three years of scraping coins together to survive in rat-infested apartments.
Three years of looking over her shoulder at every passing black sedan.
All of it had been built on the fragile belief that she had successfully severed the chains connecting her to the Marchetti empire.
“You bastard,” she whispered, tears of sheer frustration burning behind her eyelids.
“You had no right.”
“I had every right,” Sloan countered, stepping closer until his expensive wool suit brushed against her bloodstained apron.
“You swore an oath to stand beside me.”
“I swore to stand beside a businessman, Sloan!” Delphine fired back, her voice rising in the empty room.
“Not a butcher!”
“Not a man who brought men with gunshot wounds into our basement at three in the morning!”
“Not a man who expected me to suture severed arteries with blood pooling on my kitchen tile while his enemies were buried in the woods!”
Sloan did not flinch at her accusations.
His expression remained carved from dark stone.
“You knew who I was when you took the ring,” he said coldly.
“I was a young nurse who thought love could tame a monster,” Delphine whispered, the bitterness coating her tongue.
“I was stupid.”
“I grew up.”
Delphine pushed past him, heading toward the small service station in the corner of the room to grab her worn canvas shoulder bag.
Her hands shook as she unknotted the stained apron strings from behind her waist.
Every muscle in her back was screaming in protest.
She pulled the dirty cloth over her head and threw it onto the floor.
Underneath, her cheap gray maternity sweater stretched tight over her protruding belly.
Sloan followed her every movement, his gaze lingering on the curve of her stomach with an intensity that terrified her.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Sloan said, blocking the exit door with his broad frame.
“How many months?”
“Seven,” Delphine said, clutching her bag against her chest like a shield.
Sloan’s eyes narrowed into slits as he calculated the timeline in his head.
Seven months pregnant.
Three years of absence.
A dark, dangerous cloud settled over his features.
“Who is the father, Delphine?” he asked, each syllable pronounced with lethal clarity.
“Tell me his name.”
“Why?” Delphine asked, lifting her chin.
“So you can send Bishop to put a bullet through his head?”
“Yes,” Sloan answered without a second of hesitation.
“If another man touched my wife, he is already a dead man walking.”
Delphine stared at him, feeling a sickening mixture of rage and sorrow.
He had not changed at all.
The same possessive, violent tyrant who believed the entire world existed solely to bend to his will.
“There is no other man, Sloan,” Delphine said, her voice dropping into a flat, exhausted line.
Sloan paused, his eyes searching her face for any trace of deceit.
“What does that mean?”
“It means exactly what I said,” she replied, stepping toward the heavy exit door.
“Now move out of my way.”
“I need to get home and wash your sister’s blood off my arms.”
Sloan did not move an inch.
He reached out, his hand wrapping around her wrist with iron-clad certainty.
He did not squeeze hard enough to bruise, but the grip was absolute.
“You are not going back to whatever gutter you’ve been crawling through,” Sloan said.
“Excuse me?”
“You just saved Cora’s life,” Sloan said, his voice softening slightly, though the underlying command remained unyielding.
“The Marchetti family does not leave its debts unpaid.”
“I don’t want your money, Sloan!” Delphine pulled violently against his grip, but his fingers remained locked.
“I never took a dime from you when I left, and I don’t want a dime now!”
“This isn’t about money,” Sloan said, pulling her gently toward him.
“Cora was targeted tonight.”
The temperature in the room seemed to plummet ten degrees.
Delphine stopped pulling.
She looked up at Sloan, her medical instincts suddenly analyzing the details of the evening.
“Targeted?” she asked, her voice dropping.
“Cora has a severe peanut and tree nut allergy,” Sloan explained, his jaw set in a hard line.
“The kitchen at the Copper Lantern has strict, standing orders regarding her menu.”
“Every ingredient is personally inspected by my staff before it enters this room.”
“Yet she had a massive, near-fatal anaphylactic reaction from a single glass of fruit juice.”
Delphine’s eyes widened behind her cheap glasses.
“Someone put nut oil or extract directly into her drink,” Delphine realized out loud.
“Exactly,” Sloan said, his eyes darkening with murderous intent.
“Someone breached my inner circle.”
“Someone tried to execute my sister right under my nose while I sat three feet away from her.”
Delphine looked at the shattered crystal tumbler still lying on the floor, surrounded by sticky red syrup and melting ice.
It hadn’t been an accidental cross-contamination.
It had been an assassination attempt.
“And you,” Sloan continued, stepping into her personal space until she could smell his familiar cologne of cedarwood and smoke,
“You stepped out of the shadows and foiled their hit.”
“You exposed your face.”
“You exposed your medical skills.”
“And by tomorrow morning, whoever ordered Cora’s murder will know that a pregnant waitress named Delphine ruined their plan.”
A cold wave of dread crashed over Delphine’s shoulders.
Her legs went numb.
She had spent three years erasing her footprint, living in complete obscurity to protect herself.
In saving Cora, she had walked directly back into the line of fire.
“No,” Delphine whispered, shaking her head.
“Nobody knows who I am here. The restaurant staff only knows me as ‘Dee’.”
“My enemies aren’t stupid, Delphine,” Sloan said, his voice ruthless in its logic.
“They will pull the surveillance footage from the alley.”
“They will interrogate the restaurant manager.”
“They will trace your address within twelve hours.”
Sloan reached down, taking her worn canvas bag from her hands and tossing it onto the table.
“You are coming with me.”
“I’d rather die,” Delphine snapped, backing away until her spine hit the wall.
“If you stay here, that can easily be arranged by someone who isn't me,” Sloan retorted, his patience finally snapping.
He stepped forward, scooping her up into his arms before she could protest.
Delphine gasped, clutching at his shoulders as the room spun.
“Put me down! Sloan, put me down right now!”
“Shut up, Delphine,” Sloan said calmly, carrying her toward the private elevator at the end of the suite.
“You’re going to the hospital to check on Cora.”
May you like
“And after that, an obstetrician is going to examine you from head to toe.”
“And then, my dear wife, you are going to tell me every single secret you’ve been hiding for three years.”
