Chapter 2 - The Awakening in Silk
The world returned to Sarah not in a rush of pain, but in the soft, whispering touch of Egyptian cotton and the scent of fresh lavender.
She blinked her eyes open, expecting the cracked plaster ceiling of her tiny apartment in Queens or the harsh fluorescent glare of a hospital ward. Instead, she was staring up at a massive canopy bed carved from dark walnut wood. The walls of the room were lined with pale silk wallpaper, and a massive crystal chandelier hung from the high ceiling, casting a warm, amber glow across the space.
She tried to move, but a sudden, burning ache beneath her ribs forced a sharp gasp from her throat.
"Don't move, Sarah," a deep, quiet voice said from the shadows near the window.
Lorenzo Caruso stepped into the light. He had discarded his blood-stained shirt, now wearing a simple black silk robe, his dark hair falling slightly over his forehead. He looked less like the terrifying tycoon from the newspapers and more like a phantom that had haunted her dreams for the past forty-eight hours.
"Where... where am I?" Sarah whispered, her throat feeling like it was lined with sand. "Where is Toby? My brother... he needs his medication. I have to go to work—"
"Toby is safe, Sarah," Lorenzo said, walking over to the side of the bed. He sat down on the edge of the mattress, his movements fluid and strangely gentle for a man of his size. He reached out, his large, scarred hand placing a glass of ice water with a flexible straw to her lips. "Drink."
Sarah drank greedily, the cool liquid soothing her parched throat. When she finished, she looked up at him, her wide brown eyes filled with confusion and fear. "The little boy... is he okay?"
A faint, unreadable emotion flickered across Lorenzo’s hard face. "Leo is perfectly fine. He hasn't stopped talking about the angel in the white apron who saved him from the bad man. You took three nine-millimeter rounds to the torso, Sarah. The surgeons at Bellevue spent five hours repairing your liver and your right lung. You are at my private estate in Westchester."
Sarah looked down at her chest. Instead of her stained hotel uniform, she was wearing a sleeveless white silk nightgown. On her left ring finger, a massive, flawless emerald-cut diamond ring reflected the light of the chandelier.
Her breath caught. "What is this? This isn't my ring."
"It is now," Lorenzo said, his gray eyes locking onto hers with absolute, unyielding certainty. "Yesterday morning, while you were still in a medically induced coma, my attorneys formalized our marriage certificate with the state of New York. You are now Sarah Caruso. The matriarch of the Caruso family."
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Sarah stared at him, her mind spinning into a panic that had nothing to do with her physical wounds. "Are you insane? I'm a waitress! I don't know you! I don't know anything about your world!"
"You know enough to bleed for my son," Lorenzo murmured, leaning down until his face was inches from hers. "The men who ordered that strike are still out there, Sarah. They know your face. They know you saw the assassin before he pulled the trigger. In New York, a witness is a target. But a Caruso? A Caruso is untouchable. I didn't marry you out of romance, Sarah. I married you to give you an army."
