Chapter 6 - Kneeling in the Rain: The Cruelest Punishment Before the Gate
The heavy iron gates of Hawthorne Manor slammed shut with a deafening metallic clang.
The sleet fell relentlessly, stinging Nadia’s bare skin like needles. She wore only her thin black maid’s uniform and worn leather shoes. Within seconds, the freezing water soaked through the cotton fabric, chilling her bones.
She fell to her knees on the sharp gravel driveway outside the gate.
Her teeth chattered violently. Her short hair was plastered against her forehead. The cold was an agonizing, physical weight, pressing down on her chest until breathing felt like swallowing crushed ice.
Inside the gatehouse, fifty yards away, the security guards sat in the warm, heated cabin, drinking coffee from paper cups and ignoring her completely.
Clarissa had explicitly ordered them: Let her kneel in the gravel until the state troopers arrive.
Nadia clutched her arms around her shivering body.
She looked down at her left wrist. The scar from the fire looked pale and blue under the harsh glare of the gate’s floodlights.
If I go to prison, who will take care of Mila?
Who will protect her when the landlord comes for rent? Who will make sure she takes her medication?
Tears froze on Nadia’s cheeks. The despair was deeper and colder than the Atlantic storm raging around her. She had spent seven years sacrificing every scrap of dignity, every dream of her own, just to keep her sister safe in a cruel world.
And now, with a single lie, a wealthy woman had destroyed everything.
Her vision began to blur. The blackness crept in from the edges of her eyes. Her fingers went completely numb.
I’m going to die here, she thought. Just like mother died in the dark.
Suddenly, the blinding glare of twin xenon headlights cut through the torrential rain.
A heavy, roaring engine echoed against the stone pillars of the gate.
A massive black Mercedes-Maybach S680 came to a smooth, purring halt just three feet from where Nadia was kneeling in the mud.
The rear door clicked open.
A pair of polished Italian leather boots stepped out into the freezing slush.
Dragan Kovac did not carry an umbrella.
He walked through the sleet as if the storm did not exist. His heavy black cashmere coat was unbuttoned, his silver cufflinks gleaming under the security lights.
He stopped directly in front of Nadia.
He looked down at her broken, shivering figure.
Nadia looked up through her wet eyelashes, her lips trembling uncontrollably. “Mr... Mr. Kovac...”
Dragan did not say a single word.
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He reached down, took off his heavy, warm coat, and wrapped it securely around Nadia’s shivering shoulders. The scent of aged cedarwood, tobacco, and clean rain enveloped her instantly. The heat radiating from the thick wool felt like life returning to her frozen blood.
Then, Dragan leaned down, slid one powerful arm beneath her shoulders and the other behind her knees, and lifted her into his arms as effortlessly as if she weighed nothing at all.
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