Chapter 3 - The King in His Ruin
The private jet touched down at a secluded airfield in Long Island as a thunderstorm raged over New York.
I was escorted into the back of a bulletproof Maybach. As we drove through the familiar streets of Manhattan, I looked out the window and gasped.
The city I had left seven months ago was unrecognizable in the underworld districts.
The Marrow headquarters in Midtown was a scorched stone shell surrounded by police tape. The docks along the Hudson were guarded by men in dark coats carrying automatic rifles. The tension in the air was thick, suffocating—a city living under martial law enforced by a single man.
The car stopped outside Blackwood Estate—not the Upper East Side penthouse, but Roman’s heavily fortified stone fortress in upstate New York.
Grant opened my door. "He's in the library."
I walked up the grand marble staircase, my heart beating a frantic rhythm against my chest. Every step felt like walking back into the cage I had spent seven months trying to forget.
I pushed open the double mahogany doors of the library.
The room smelled of old paper, rain, and heavy scotch.
Roman Calder stood by the grand arched window, looking out over the stormy gardens.
He was thinner. The sharp lines of his jaw were more pronounced, dark circles bruised the skin beneath his gray eyes, and silver threads caught the light at his temples. He wore a black shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing the faint white scars on his forearms.
He looked like a king sitting atop a throne of ashes.
He didn't turn around when the door clicked shut.
"You took forty-two minutes to pack your things in Oregon," Roman said, his voice deeper, rougher than I remembered. "Grant had to wait."
"I was deciding whether to shoot myself or shoot Grant," I said coldly, standing five feet inside the room.
Roman slowly turned to face me.
The impact of his gray gaze felt like a physical blow. For seven months, I had remembered him as a cold statue. But as his eyes swept over my brown hair, my simple sweater, and my pale face, something wild and dangerous flared in his expression—a dark, possessive hunger that made my skin prickle.
"You dyed your hair," he murmured, taking a slow step toward me. "I don't like it."
"I don't care what you like, Roman," I spat back, holding my ground despite the trembling in my knees. "Why am I here? Why couldn't you just let me die to you like you wanted?"
Roman stopped two inches away from me. The heat radiating off his body was overwhelming, filling the narrow space between us with the familiar scent of cedar and rain.
"Because you stole from me, Evelyn," he whispered, leaning down until his lips were inches from my ear.
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"I took two hundred thousand dollars of my own earned money!"
"I don't care about the money," Roman growled, his large hand snapping out to grip the back of my neck, his fingers tangling in my hair, pulling my face up to meet his intense, tortured gaze. "You stole yourself. You took the only thing in this godforsaken city that kept me human."
