Chapter 1: The Weight of Steel
The rope burned through the raw skin of my wrists with every fraction of an inch I shifted, but the marble beneath my bare soles was colder still. Above my head, the crystal chandelier vibrated with the heavy bass of the storm rolling in from the Thames, rattling thousands of cut-glass pendants like wind chimes in a graveyard. Julianne stood two paces away, the silk of her gold robe catching the dim foyer sconces, her fluffy slippers silent against the stone. She looked at me the way my mother used to look at a stained rug—an annoyance to be scrubbed away before company arrived.
“You will learn your place,” Julianne said, her voice dropping into that smooth, glacial register she reserved exclusively for the staff. She didn't raise her pitch. People who belonged in high-society drawing rooms never needed to shout.
Before my tongue could find moisture enough to form a syllable, the massive oak doors at the end of the hall groaned on their iron hinges. A wall of wind slammed into the foyer, carrying the smell of ozone, wet asphalt, and the dark, churning river. Dominic stepped across the threshold. Water plastered the dark hair to his temples, soaking the shoulders of his bespoke suit, the wet fabric clinging to the dense expanse of ink sprawling across his collarbone. He didn't look like a philanthropist or a shipping magnate tonight; he looked like a storm that had decided to take human form.
Julianne spun around, her posture shifting from predatory to fragile in the blink of an eye, her hands fluttering up to cup her throat.
“Dominic… You’re in London?” she gasped, the artifice in her tone so thick it tasted like copper.
Dominic didn't answer her. His gaze tracked past her shoulder, sliding up the thick hemp rope to where my wrists were lashed to the iron scrollwork of the chandelier. His eyes didn't widen; they narrowed into flat, slate-grey slits that locked onto my face and stayed there. The silence in the foyer stretched so thin I could hear the rain drumming a deafening tattoo against the stained-glass dome overhead. A muscle feathered deep in his jaw, the only sign of the seismic pressure building behind his teeth.
“Is this how you run my home?” Dominic asked. His voice wasn't loud, but it vibrated through the floorboards, cold enough to frost the glass.
“She was insolent, Dom,” Julianne hurried to say, her steps clicking as she closed the distance toward him, her hand reaching out to touch his drenched lapel. “The girl doesn't understand boundaries. I merely taught her a lesson in respect.”
Dominic didn't flinch away from her touch, but he didn't lean into it either. He simply turned his head slightly, his dark eyes fixing on me once more as a single drop of rain tracked down my cheek, mingling with the salt of my own exhaustion.
“Mr. Mercer…” I whispered, the words scraping out of a throat too dry to swallow.
Dominic took two slow, measured strides forward, his wet leather shoes leaving dark prints on the pristine marble. He reached inside his jacket, his fingers emerging with a small silver pocketknife. With a single flick of his thumb, the blade snapped open, catching the chandelier light like a star. He didn't look at Julianne when he issued his command, his eyes locked entirely on mine, burning with a lethal, suppressed intensity.
May you like
“Untie her. Now.”
Julianne’s breath hitched, her hand dropping from his arm as if she’d touched a live wire. I let out a ragged breath as the hemp parted, my knees giving out the second the tension left my arms, sending me sinking down toward the cold stone floor before the darkness at the edge of my vision could swallow me whole.
