The drive from the hospital to the St. Regis was a blur of neon lights and the lingering scent of gunpowder. My hands were tight on the steering wheel, my knuckles white. I had just walked out of a literal bloodbath, my mind screaming with the need to pull Chloe and Leo into my arms and disappear into the shadows of my fortress.
But I didn't have that right. Not anymore.
I pulled the Mercedes to the curb across from the hotel, the engine idling like a low, predatory growl. I didn't step out. I couldn't. Chloe hadn't given me a "free hand" to enter her space, and as much as the Mafia King in me wanted to kick down her door, the man in me was paralyzed by the wall she had built between us.
I looked up at the entrance of the hotel and froze. The perimeter was crawling with security. St. Regis was known for its elite ground staff, but these weren't just any security guards. These men moved with a disciplined, quiet efficiency, their eyes scanning the San Francisco fog with the intensity of wolves. These weren't hotel staff. Chloe had hired her own protection.
A bitter, cold laugh escaped my throat. I was internally amazed at how far she would go to protect herself and our son, but at the same time, a dark wave of jealousy and sadness washed over me. The realization hit me like a physical blow to the gut: Chloe could survive without me. She didn't need my name, my money, or my guns. She had become the fortress I used to think I was.
My mind drifted back to the incident in her hospital penthouse. I had walked in expecting to find a woman in distress; instead, I had found two armed, capable men neutralized on the floor. She had taken them down alone, with the ferocity of a mother protecting her cub.
"She was nothing but a breeding vessel."
The words I had spat about her in the privacy of my office years ago—dismissing Marcus's pleas to treat her better—echoed in the cabin of the car, louder than the San Francisco wind. They felt like acid in my throat now. Little did I know back then that she had heard every word. I had treated her like an object, a means to an end. I hadn't seen the fire in her, or perhaps I had been too arrogant to admit it existed.
It was only after her fake death—after the world went grey and the silence of my mansion became unbearable—that the truth had surfaced. I hadn't just lost a wife; I had lost the only heart that beat in the same direction as mine. I had fallen in love with a ghost, only to find out the ghost was alive and hated the very ground I walked on.
Flashing back to the week before her disappearance, my stomach churned. I remembered a night of blind rage after a confrontation with a rival. I had rough-handled her in bed, turning a moment that should have been cherished into a nightmare of pain.
"Asher, stop it... you're hurting me." Her voice from that night crashed into me like a high-speed vehicle that had lost its brakes. I could still see the painful tears in her eyes. But I had ignored her pleas, ravaging her as though she were nothing more than a common prostitute.
God. Was she pregnant then?
The painful truth hit me with the force of a bullet. I could have caused the death of my own child in her womb. That was the last time I had touched her. How had she survived that while carrying my son? I whispered a fractured prayer of thanks to a God I rarely spoke to—thanking Him for protecting her and Leo when he was nothing but blood in her womb.
I stared at the hotel windows, my chest aching. To her, I was the monster who had belittled her. To me, she was the life I had realized I wanted far too late. I was the King of an empire, but in this moment, sitting in the dark of my car, I felt like a beggar.
I shifted the car into gear. I couldn't stay. If I did, I would break my promise of space. I needed to get back to my fortress, to the cold comfort of my security feeds and the hunt for the man who had breached Marcus's room.
I was just about to pull away when my phone vibrated on the console. The caller ID made my heart stop.
Chloe.
She was calling me? At nearly midnight? I checked my watch, my brow furrowing. Why wasn't she sleeping? Was she worried? Had she seen me from the window? Was she mad that I had come here without informing her?
I stared at the screen, my finger hovering over the answer button. The air in the car felt suddenly thin. This wasn't a social call. Not from her.
******