{ W I L L I A M }
Three hours.
It had been exactly three hours, fourteen minutes, and twenty seconds since the elevator doors had closed on Madelyn, and the silence inside the penthouse was loud enough to make my ears ring.
I paced the length of the floor-to-ceiling windows, my bare feet digging into the cold hardwood, a glass of untouched scotch sweating on the kitchen island. I hadn't put on a shirt. The cool night air rolling off the AC hit my skin, but I didn't feel it.
The only thing I felt was a dark, twisting claw of pure, unadulterated dread tightening around my throat.
"You just... you have to trust me." She had pleaded, her eyes shining with tears as her small hands pressed against my chest. "Do you trust me?"
I had said yes.
Because I did.
I trusted her with my life, with my empire, with the fragile, bleeding pieces of a soul I thought Dominic Torres had permanently turned to stone.
