Chapter 10
CINDER
The kiss ends before I'm ready to let it go.
Samuel pulls back and presses his forehead against mine, his breath warm on my lips. My fingers are still flat against his bare chest, his heart drumming steady under my palm while mine hammers against my ribs.
Wind bites through the shirt on my shoulders and raises goosebumps along my bare thighs.
Beyond Samuel, an enforcer materializes from the tree line and pulls the iron gates shut.
The heavy clang of metal on metal echoes across the grounds.
A second enforcer appears near the east perimeter, rifle slung low across his chest. I count two more patrolling the fence line before they dissolve back into the shadows.
"Let’s go inside." His voice drops low, rough around the vowels. "You're shaking."
I am. My whole body vibrates with cold, adrenaline, and whatever this man does to my nervous system every time he puts his mouth on mine. My heart is still racing from his kiss, the heat of it trapped under my skin while the cold works to steal it away.
“Gentlemen, please join us.”
Boots crunch over gravel behind us. Oliver, Bastian, and Valerian fall into step, their weapons already holstered.
Samuel wraps an arm around my shoulders and steers me toward the entrance. I don't fight him. My legs are barely holding and my bare feet sting against the cold pavers where I kicked off those ridiculous heels.
The front door closes behind us and the air inside is nearly as cold as the air outside.
Samuel keeps his house frigid, the kind of cold that sinks into bare skin and stays.
But the floors tell a different story. Heated concrete, dark and seamless, pushes warmth up through the soles of my feet and my toes spread against the smooth surface.
I let out a breath I've been holding since Edgar slapped my ass back in my father’s kitchen.
That feels like hours ago, but in reality less than forty-five minutes have passed.
Samuel guides me through a corridor of glass and steel into a massive living room anchored by a wall of windows that stretches the entire length of the space.
Beyond the glass, landscape lights cast a faint silver-green glow over sculpted hedges and stone pathways that disappear into the black.
The garden is still. Eerily beautiful, like a sleeping graveyard wrapped in silver moonlight.
I cast around for any signs of home life. But there are no photographs on the walls. No clutter on any of the surfaces. There’s absolutely no sign that anyone laughs in this place or leaves a coffee mug on the counter without thinking about it. Every surface is bare.
Oliver, Bastian, and Valerian file in behind us.
I track their presence by the weight of their footsteps on the concrete and the shift of energy that fills the room.
Oliver crosses to the far wall and leans his weight against it, scanning the grounds.
Smart. I wouldn't trust the darkness either. Not after tonight.
Bastian drops onto the arm of a leather chair and rolls his sleeves down. Valerian stands near the entryway, scarred fingers working a fresh cigar from his breast pocket, the cherry tip flaring orange when he lights it.
My God. That man needs an intervention.
My hand drifts to my belly. I catch myself and force it to my side, but Samuel's gaze follows the movement. He tracks my fingers, a warm smile playing over his lips.
Tears blur the edge of my vision. The adrenaline has burned off and left behind a raw, exposed nerve that pulses with every beat of my heart. The last five months crash into the last hour and the weight of all of it presses down on my shoulders until my knees threaten to fold.
He holds me to him as we look out over his garden.
"Your wife?" The word catches in my throat. I force it out because I need to hear him explain the grenade he tossed at my feet outside.
Samuel's hand comes up, his knuckles dragging a slow stroke across my cheekbone. He doesn't answer the question. His eyes hold steady on mine. Dark brown. Patient.
"I love the way your hand never strays far from your middle.
" His palm glides over the swell of my belly and spreads wide, his scarred fingers curving around the bump with a tenderness that makes my knees go soft.
"You're beautiful, Cinder. Glowing." He picks a piece of plaster out of my hair and flicks it away.
My throat tightens. I don't have a response for that. Not here, not when I'm covered in plaster dust, have the worst outfit on and feel like my world has caved in.
Samuel turns his head without releasing me. "Gentlemen. On second thought, give me a minute with Cinder, please."
“Sure. We’ll be close by.”
That was Oliver.
“Thank you.”
I track their departure by the sound of boots on concrete, the soft click of a door, and the gradual drain of tension from the room as their collective energy withdraws.
Bastian's heavy stride disappears first. Oliver's quieter footsteps follow.
Valerian's cigar smoke lingers after the door closes behind him, a thin blue trail hanging in the still, cold air.
The silence that follows helps my nerves feel less raw by the second.
"Um, why did you do that?"
"Because what I'm about to tell you will cause some friction and I want you to have the privacy you need to absorb the shitstorm news that is coming your way."
My lips and brow follow each other into a deep scowl. “So, more bad news.” I say with a thin smile, not feeling amused in the slightest.
I wrap his shirt tighter around my shoulders and cross my arms over the swell of my belly. The baby shifts, and I press my palm flat against the movement.
"You need to shift your thinking on how Edgar needs to be taken down. The man is planning twenty ways to kill you right now. We can’t wait to go the conventional route of seeking justice when it comes to him."
I stare at him. My heart fails me for a few seconds. The brutal honesty does that sometimes, I guess.
My mind reels. "He's an asshole, but I don't think he's out to kill me.
He was mad tonight, sure. Furious. But kill me?
I mean nothing to him. Why would he risk getting caught and going to prison for me?
" I shake my head. "I don’t think he even realized I was pregnant.
He was too focused on you not killing him to notice. "
As I speak, his gaze drifts over me, pausing only slightly when his attention reaches my baby bump. "Don't be so sure of that."
Samuel's jaw tightens. The muscle along his cheekbone flexes and releases, a controlled pulse of restraint that tells me he is working very hard not to grab his guns and go back and end Edgar right now.
"If you go back to your father's mansion, Edgar will put you in a shallow grave for spite, revenge, and petty rivalry. Now that he knows I want you, he will destroy you to wound me. Edgar has always wanted everything I have."
The heat drains from my face. I grip the edge of the marble kitchen island behind me. The surface is ice-cold under my fingers, sharp-edged and unforgiving, and the shock of temperature grounds me in the present when my mind wants to spin backward.
"You're scaring me, Samuel."
Eyes still lingering on my body, he says flatly, "Good. You should be scared."
I work the inside of my cheek between my teeth and force my breathing to slow. "What else are you not telling me?"
He steps closer. The recessed lighting carves shadows along the ridges of his jaw and the ink crawling up his neck. His voice drops lower, the volume shrinking while the weight of every syllable doubles.
"Knowing Edgar and your stepmother, he is already working the underground. Lining up a buyer."
My eyes grow wide. "A buyer for what?"
"Either to sell our child on the black market if he ever gets you within reach, or, knowing him, he’ll go after the bigger bucks and sell you as a breeder."
The room tilts. My vision narrows to a pinpoint and the hum of the climate system swells in my ears until it drowns everything else. My knees buckle and Samuel catches me, his arm banding around my waist, his hand pressing firm against the small of my back.
"Breathe, princess."
I pull air in through my nose and push it out through my mouth, my fingers digging into the muscle of his forearm.
"What makes you think all this?" My voice comes out thin.
Foreign. "I've known both of them for a long time and I've never heard of any of this.
Edgar was friends with my father for decades, Samuel.
My stepmother is a greedy bitch and so are her daughters.
But traffickers?" I swallow hard. "My father would have known and put a stop to it. How can you be so sure?"
"Edgar is one of the board members of Society 69." Samuel holds my gaze without blinking.
My tongue doesn’t work for several seconds as I stand looking up at him.
"They traffic young women like you. And worse. You would be surprised by who is part of that organization. Some of the nicest people have their names on that list."
My stomach heaves. Acid climbs the back of my throat and I clamp my teeth shut against it. The baby kicks, a sharp jab against the wall of my belly, as if the little life inside me is reacting to the poison flooding my bloodstream.
"This is news to me. And if you're right, that's sick as fuck on so many levels."
"I'm right, princess."
I search his face for any sign he's exaggerating. Any crack in the calm. There is none. Samuel has sat across tables from monsters his entire life. I don’t need to hear his life story to know that simple fact.
It’s part of his world. He knows monsters.
And right now, his eyes hold nothing but that steady, unshakable certainty of darker truths buried so deep they'll never shake loose.
"Now you're getting the idea about who Edgar Silvani really is. Now that I've taken you, he will want you back. It’s only a matter of time before he tests my strength and tries to come for you."