Chapter 6 - The Sanctuary
Marisol flinched, pressing herself tighter against the wall, her long sleeves sliding down to reveal bruised wrists. She looked up through a veil of tear-streaked hair, expecting another monster, another master to replace the one lying unconscious on the floor.
Instead, she saw a man kneeling down on one knee right beside her, his movements careful, deliberate, and entirely devoid of threat.
"Marisol," he said, using her name with a quiet reverence that made her breath catch. "You're safe now."
She stared at him, her chest heaving. "Who are you? What do you want from me?"
"I want nothing from you," Matteo replied gently. He reached out, his long fingers hovering an inch from her arm before he realized she was flinching. He pulled his hand back immediately. "I’m Matteo. Three nights ago, I saw you on my ship. I saw what that animal was trying to do. I couldn't stop it right then without starting a war in international waters, but I had my men follow you home."
Marisol swallowed hard, her hand still pressed against her stomach. "My... my baby. He was going to—"
"I know," Matteo interrupted, his amber eyes flashing with a cold, protective fire. "Your baby is safe. And you are never going back to him."
He stood up, offering her a hand—not demanding, not pulling, simply waiting to see if she would take it.
Marisol looked from Matteo’s steady, open hand down to Dean’s unconscious form on the floor, and then back to the broken mirror reflecting a new, defiant light in her eyes. For two years, she had hidden under long sleeves, waiting for a miracle.
She reached out and placed her small, trembling hand into Matteo’s palm.
He pulled her up with effortless strength, steadying her when her knees wobbled from exhaustion and shock. At that exact moment, the sound of sirens echoed up from the boardwalk below—not local police cruisers, but federal transport vans and medical units dispatched by Matteo’s private network to clean up the wreckage of Ashford’s miserable empire.
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"Where are we going?" Marisol whispered as he guided her toward the shattered doorway.
"Somewhere quiet," Matteo said, wrapping his own dark wool coat around her shoulders to shield her from the chilly Atlantic wind. "A place where no one will ever raise their voice, let alone a hand, against you or your child."
