Chapter 10 - THE HEALING IN THE MOUNTAINS
His lips were warm, demanding, and fierce.
The kiss tasted of rain, salt, and the sweet, absolute certainty of survival.
For three seconds, Clara’s mind went completely blank.
The fear, the gunfire, the burning mansion—all of it vanished into the searing heat of his mouth.
She gasped against his lips, her hands moving instinctively to his broad shoulders.
She gripped the fabric of his torn shirt, anchoring herself to his immovable frame.
Damian pulled her tightly against his chest.
His arms wrapped around her waist with a desperate, crushing strength, as if he were afraid she might evaporate into the mountain mist.
When he finally pulled back, both of them were breathing hard.
His forehead rested against hers.
His stormy gray eyes were wide, dark, and filled with an emotion so raw it terrified her.
“I’ve wanted to do that since the night I found you on that beach,” Damian whispered raggedly.
Clara swallowed hard, her chest heaving against his.
“Damian... I’m your maid.”
A quiet, breathless laugh rumbled in his chest.
He reached up, his thumb gently wiping a tear from her cheek.
“You stopped being my maid the second you carried my sons through fire, Clara.”
He stood up smoothly, offering his hand to help her to her feet.
She took it, letting him pull her up against him.
“Now,” Damian said, his voice turning gentle.
“Let’s take care of Marco, and then we take care of you.”
For the next hour, they worked together in quiet, practiced harmony.
Clara’s years of caring for her ailing mother had given her steady hands and medical instincts.
She assisted Damian as he cleaned and sutured Marco’s thigh wound using sterile surgical supplies from the trauma kit.
Marco groaned through his teeth, clutching an iron poker, until the local anesthetic took hold.
“Good work, Miss Hayes,” Marco muttered through sweat-soaked stubble as Clara bandaged his leg with clean white gauze.
“You’ve got the hands of a surgeon.”
“Just an exhausted daughter, Marco,” Clara replied with a small, weary smile.
After settling Marco into the back bedroom with pain medication, Clara returned to the main room.
The fire in the stone hearth was crackling warmly, casting golden dancing shadows across the cedar-paneled walls.
Damian had already warmed two bottles of formula on the small propane stove.
He sat on the wool rug before the fire, holding Oliver in the crook of his arm, gently feeding him.
The sight took Clara’s breath away.
The most feared mafia don on the Eastern Seaboard was sitting on a braided rug, burping a six-month-old infant with infinite patience.
Clara walked over and sat down beside him.
She lifted Owen into her lap, offering him the second bottle.
The baby latched on hungrily, his tiny fingers wrapping tightly around Clara’s thumb.
“He has your eyes, Damian,” Clara murmured, watching the baby’s dark gray irises.
Damian looked over at Owen, then at Clara.
“God help him, then,” Damian said softly.
“He has a father who loves him,” Clara replied, looking straight into Damian’s eyes.
“That’s more than a lot of children have.”
Damian set the empty bottle on the floor, lifting Oliver against his shoulder to burp him.
“My father never held me like this, Clara,” Damian confessed quietly, staring into the flickering flames.
“He taught me how to shoot when I was seven. He taught me how to break a man’s fingers when I was ten.”
He looked down at Oliver’s sleeping face.
“I swore to myself before they were born that they would never see the dark rooms I lived in.”
“You protected them tonight,” Clara said gently, resting her hand on Damian’s forearm.
His muscles were corded like steel beneath her touch.
“I failed them,” Damian countered, his jaw clenching with self-loathing.
“I brought a viper like Victoria into their house. I let Russo put a bomb in their home.”
“You didn't fail them, Damian,” Clara insisted, her voice firm.
She reached out, turning his face toward hers.
“You came back for them. You walked through fire for them.”
Damian looked at her, his eyes shining with unshed tears.
“Because you kept them alive until I could get there, Clara.”
He set Oliver down in the portable bassinet beside Owen, who had already drifted off to sleep.
Damian turned back to Clara.
He reached out and gently unbuttoned the top two buttons of her oversized sweater, exposing the angry red burn on her shoulder where the dressing had slipped.
“You’re hurt,” he whispered, his brow furrowing with concern.
“It’s just a blister—”
“Sit still,” he commanded softly.
He retrieved a jar of soothing silver sulfadiazine cream and fresh sterile bandages from the kit.
He knelt behind her on the rug.
His touch was feather-light as he cleaned the tender skin.
Clara let out a small, trembling sigh, closing her eyes as the cooling cream numbed the throbbing burn.
His fingers were warm, steady, and reverent.
When he finished taping the gauze, he didn't pull away.
He leaned forward, pressing a soft, lingering kiss against the bare skin of her collarbone right beside the bandage.
A shiver of pure electricity rippled through Clara’s body.
She leaned back against his solid chest, letting her head rest against his shoulder.
Outside, the mountain wind howled through the tall pines, throwing sheets of rain against the cedar logs.
Inside the circle of firelight, wrapped in Damian’s arms with the babies breathing softly beside them, Clara felt an overwhelming, profound peace.
For the first time in her difficult life, she was home.
Then, from the table across the room, Damian’s satellite phone buzzed against the pine wood.
A single sharp vibration.
Damian reached over and picked it up.
He read the encrypted text on the glowing screen.
His face turned to stone.
Clara sat up, sensing the sudden, violent shift in the air.
“What is it, Damian?”
Damian set the phone face-down on the table.
His gray eyes were colder than the mountain ice outside.
“Salvatore Russo just called an emergency meeting of the Five Families Commission in New York for tomorrow noon.”
“Why?” Clara asked, her heart dropping into her stomach.
“Victoria is with him,” Damian said, his voice flat and brutal.
“She’s testifying before the Commission that I murdered my own sons in the fire and blamed it on her family.”
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Damian stood up, towering over the room like an avenging shadow.
“If the Commission believes her, they will strip my territory and declare a contract on every Costello in America.”
