Chapter 7 - "MARRY ME BY DAWN OR DIE BY MIDNIGHT"—THE DEVIL'S ULTIMATUM
The silence that followed was suffocating. I fell back into an leather armchair, clutching my head as tears soaked my face.
My baby was alive. Leo—the sweet boy with the messy dark hair and plastic dinosaur—was the child I had mourned for six long years.
“What happens now?” I whispered, looking up at Dante through blurry eyes. “Are you going to shoot me? Or throw me back on the street and hide him from me?”
Dante walked slowly around the desk. He dropped to one knee before my chair—a crime boss kneeling before a penniless waitress with blood on her clothes.
“I have killed men for looking at me wrong,” Dante said softly. “I have dismantled syndicates for disrespecting my family. But you... you shed your blood to save the boy you didn't even know was yours. You fought off armed hitmen with your bare hands to shield him.”
He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a heavy velvet box. He flipped it open, revealing a breathtaking ring set with a massive black diamond surrounded by flawless white stones.
“What is this?” I breathed.
“Don Valenti and the Syndicate Council know I have a weakness now,” Dante said, his voice dropping into a lethal, low register. “They know about Leo, and they know about you. Tomorrow, Valenti will use the underworld courts to challenge my authority, claiming Leo is illegitimate and that you are an unstable security risk.”
He took my hand, his fingers strong and unyielding. “If you leave this estate, Valenti’s men will hunt you down to use you as leverage against me. If you stay as a servant or a guest, they will call you a liability.”
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“Then what are you saying?”
“Marry me,” Dante demanded, his dark eyes locking onto mine with absolute command. “Marry me by dawn. Become my wife. Become the indisputable Queen of the Vance Syndicate. Together, we will legally sign the joint custody papers. No court, no mob boss, and no law in this world will ever be able to take Leo away from either of us.”
