Chapter 2 - THE CHEAP WOODEN FRAME
Adrian did not look away from me.
His dark eyes pinned me where I stood.
The heavy silence in the ballroom tasted like copper.
Caroline Wells let out a sharp, mocking laugh.
"A server?" she asked.
She tossed her golden hair over her shoulder.
"Adrian, darling, you can't be serious."
The other women joined in with polite, venomous chuckles.
Adrian’s expression never shifted.
He set his untouched glass of bourbon on a marble pedestal.
"Five minutes," Adrian said softly.
His voice cut through their laughter like a razor through silk.
"Make your choices."
The seven women scrambled.
Greed replaced their elegance in a heartbeat.
Vanessa grabbed the handwritten deed to the South Philly shipping terminal.
Lauren sprinted toward the private gallery for an original Renoir.
Melissa snatched a velvet case of uncut Burmese rubies.
Caroline walked straight to the glass pedestal near the fireplace.
She lifted an eighty-carat sapphire necklace worth twelve million dollars.
She held it against her throat, smiling triumphantly.
"Mine," Caroline whispered.
I did not move toward the gold.
I turned my back on the diamonds, the deeds, and the museum pieces.
I slipped through the velvet curtain behind the grand staircase.
My black flats made no sound on the worn floorboards of the service corridor.
The air here was cooler.
It smelled of lemon polish, old brick, and faint pipe tobacco.
I reached the narrow wall beside the pantry door.
There it hung.
A battered pine frame, scuffed at the corners, holding a faded pencil sketch.
It showed an old wooden dock by a stormy sea.
In the bottom right corner were two tiny, childish initials: A & M.
My fingers brushed the dusty glass.
I lifted it gently off the iron nail.
I turned around and walked back into the marble gallery.
When I stepped into the chandelier light, the seven women stared.
Melissa burst out laughing.
"She picked a piece of garbage from the hallway!"
Caroline sneered, clutching her sapphire.
"Did you honestly think you were part of this, girl?"
Grant Mercer, standing by the fireplace, took a sharp breath.
Adrian went completely motionless.
His tall frame tightened until his knuckles went dead white at his sides.
The entire ballroom seemed to lose all its oxygen.
He stepped toward me.
One measured, deliberate step at a time.
His gaze never left the cheap pine frame in my hands.
"Where did you get that?" Adrian asked.
His voice was barely a whisper, yet it made the crystal flutes vibrate.
My heart hammered against my ribs.
"From the back corridor," I said.
My voice did not waver.
"Where you go every night at 12:15."
The room remained frozen.
"Why?" he asked.
"Because this is the only thing in this house you never bought with blood."
Adrian stopped inches from me.
I could smell the dark cedar and cold rain clinging to his suit.
He looked down into my hazel eyes.
Then he turned his head toward the seven heiresses.
"Put everything back," Adrian said coldly.
Caroline gasped. "What? You promised—"
"Get out," Adrian commanded.
His voice dropped an octave, radiating lethal authority.
"Every single one of you. Leave Vale House immediately."
Security guards moved in like shadows, escorting the panicked women out.
The massive oak doors slammed shut.
Adrian turned back to me.
He reached out, his warm, scarred fingers closing around my wrist.
"You just took the one thing keeping me human, Nora Bennett."
May you like
His jaw tightened.
"Now tell me whose blood you really belong to."
