Chapter 1 - The First Bite and the Iron Rule
The wooden train had left a deep, purple bruise right across Ruby’s collarbone, a dull throb that beat in time with her racing pulse. In the heavy stillness of the Romano foyer, every armed guard held his breath. Vincent Romano’s hand still hovered an inch from where he had caught her, his dark eyes locked onto her face with a mixture of disbelief and clinical assessment.
"You didn't flinch," Vincent said, his voice dropping an octave into something dangerously quiet.
"Flinching doesn't pay my father's medical bills, Mr. Romano," Ruby replied, keeping her voice steady despite the fiery pain radiating down her shoulder. She remained on her knees, bringing her eye level down to match the raging two-year-old standing a few feet away.
Leo’s lower lip quivered. The aggressive posture vanished, replaced by a sudden, violent sob that seemed to tear from the center of his small chest. He dropped to his knees, hauled the heavy wooden toy back up, and lunged forward—not to throw it, but to bury his tear-streaked face directly into the fabric of Ruby’s cheap navy dress, sinking his tiny teeth straight into her upper arm.
Sharp, white-hot agony shot up her arm. A gasp tore past her lips, and her fingers instinctively curled into fists. Every instinct screamed at her to pull away, to shove him off, to scream.
The rent. The lender. The hospice bills.
Instead, Ruby bit her own lower lip until she tasted copper, exhaled a slow, shuddering breath, and wrapped her arms gently around the sobbing toddler, holding him tight against her chest.
"I know," she whispered into his dark curls, ignoring the searing pain in her arm. "I know it hurts, Leo. But I'm not going anywhere."
Vincent stared down at them, his expression completely unreadable. For three months, child psychologists, elite pediatric nurses, and high-priced specialists had fled this house in tears, bruised, bitten, and broken. None of them had lasted twenty minutes.
Slowly, Leo’s frantic biting slowed. His jaw unlatched from her arm, leaving a crescent-shaped ring of angry, bruised skin. He looked up at Ruby, his breathing ragged, his small hands clutching the lapels of her dress.
Vincent looked down at the bloody imprint on her arm, then up at Ruby’s pale, determined face. A strange, sharp current shifted in the air between them.
May you like
"You start immediately," Vincent said, his tone absolute. "Mrs. Higgins will show you the nursery. Do not bandage that bite until the house doctor has inspected it."
As Vincent turned and strode back toward his private study, a heavy realization settled over Ruby. She had just survived her first test. But the true war for the little boy’s shattered soul—and her own survival in the lion's den—had only just begun.
