Chapter 2 - THE FEVER IN THE COTTAGEThe walk to the staff cottage took three minutes, but to Adrien, it felt like dragging an anchor through glass.
He didn't use the front path. He walked through the damp, overgrown grass of the inner courtyard, holding Lily’s small, cold hand in his. She didn't pull away. Children and dogs always knew the truth about a man before he spoke, and right now, Lily’s instinctive grip on his finger told him she trusted him out of pure, unadulterated desperation.
When they reached the cottage, the door was unlocked—a security violation that would have gotten any of his estate guards fired by morning. But tonight, security was the last thing on his mind.
He pushed the door open.
The room was freezing. The small electric radiator in the corner was clicking faintly, its coils barely warm to the touch. On a narrow iron-framed bed in the center of the room, a young woman was thrashing under a thin gray blanket. Her face was flushed bright crimson, sweat slicking her dark hair to her temples, her lips cracked and murmuring incoherent fragments of fear.
"Clara!" Lily cried, dropping Adrien's hand and running to the bedside, tugging frantically at the blanket. "Mama! Look, I brought the big man. I didn't break his shoes, Mama, I cleaned them!"
Adrien stepped into the room, his eyes scanning the space with the cold, calculating precision of a tactical commander. There was no food on the counter. Only a half-empty cup of water and a bottle of generic fever reducers that had expired six months ago.
How long has she been like this? he demanded of the empty room.
He moved to the bed, placing the back of his massive hand against Clara’s forehead. Her skin was burning hot—she was easily pushing 104 degrees. Pneumonia, or a severe systemic infection brought on by weeks of overwork and exhaustion under his roof.
He pulled out his encrypted satellite phone, dialing a direct, private number that bypassed his entire security detail.
"Doctor Vance," Adrien said the moment the line connected, his tone razor-sharp. "Get your bag, your portable IV kits, and an ambulance crew. I want them at the south gate in twelve minutes."
"Mr. Romano?" Vance stammered, half-asleep. "Is there an emergency? Did someone breach the perimeter—"
"If you aren't at the staff cottage in twelve minutes, Doctor, you won't have to worry about the perimeter anymore because you'll be practicing medicine in Antarctica. Move."
He clicked the phone shut.
Clara groaned, her eyelids flickering open. For a second, her delirious gaze focused on the towering figure standing over her bed. She didn't see a savior. She saw the phantom that had haunted her nightmares since she took this job—the ruthless mafia boss who owned her life, her labor, and her future.
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"Please..." Clara choked out, tears spilling over her hot lashes. "Don't... don't take Lily. Take me. Do whatever you want to me, but leave her alone..."
Adrien froze. The words paralyzed him. In that single, agonizing second, the brutal reality of what his kingdom was built on crashed down upon him. He wasn't a protector. To these people, he was a monster.
