Chapter 5 - Rules of the Penthouse
By 4:30 AM, they were back inside the Manhattan penthouse, the heavy steel-reinforced doors locked down behind them.
The transition from the warzone of Pier 42 to the quiet luxury of the high-rise felt surreal. Blood and rainwater dripped onto the Italian marble foyer. Marco was downstairs in the building's private security suite, treating a graze on his forearm and monitoring the exterior surveillance feeds.
Adriana sat on a barstool in the expansive kitchen, her hands finally beginning to shake as the adrenaline crashed out of her system.
Victor had removed his blood-splattered coat and rolled up the sleeves of his white dress shirt, revealing forearms corded with muscle and crisscrossed with old, faded scars. He set a first-aid kit and a fresh bottle of scotch on the counter.
“Drink,” he said, pouring two fingers of amber liquid into a glass and sliding it to her.
She took the glass, her fingers brushing his. Her skin was freezing; his was searing hot. She drank the scotch in one swallow, coughing as the burn spread through her chest.
“Better?” he asked.
“No. But it helps.”
She looked down at her jeans, torn at the knee, and the bruised skin underneath. “We almost died out there.”
“We survived,” Victor corrected quietly, opening an antiseptic wipe. “Give me your hand.”
Adriana hesitated, then extended her right palm. She had scraped it raw against the asphalt during the firefight.
Victor took her hand gently. For a man who dealt in violence and empire, his touch was astonishingly delicate. He cleaned the grit from her wound, his movements measured and careful.
Adriana watched his face. Up close, without the mask of the ruthless mafia don, she could see the heavy lines of exhaustion etched around his dark eyes.
“Why did you protect me?” she asked softly. “Back at the pier. You threw yourself on top of me. You could have used me as a distraction to flank them.”
Victor didn't look up from her hand as he wrapped a sterile bandage around her palm.
“In my world, Adriana, people only value what they can take from you. Lorenzo spent twenty-two years pretending to be my brother while calculating the price of my head. You walked in here with nothing to gain, refused to cower, and used your camera to tell the truth even while bullets were flying.”
He secured the tape and finally met her gaze.
“I protect what is rare. And you are the rarest thing that has ever walked through that door.”
The air between them grew impossibly thick. Adriana felt her breath catch. The distance between their faces was barely six inches. She could see the flecks of gold in his dark brown eyes, feel the steady heat radiating from his chest.
“There are rules in this house,” Victor murmured, his voice a low rumble.
“Tell me the rules,” she whispered, neither of us pulling away.
“Rule one: You stay where I can see you. Rule two: You question everything I do, because your eyes see what mine miss.”
“And rule three?”
May you like
Victor’s fingers lingered on the curve of her jaw, his thumb tracing the soft line of her cheekbone.
“Rule three: When this is over, Adriana... I am not letting you go back to living in the shadows.”
