Chapter 7 - The Confession in the Safe Room
Thirty minutes later, the Zenith Club meeting had dissolved into a panicked retreat. Marcus Vance and his terrified councilmen had fled the building before the ink on their own fear could dry.
Back inside the bulletproof black SUV speeding through the rainy streets of Bellgrave, the silence was thick, heavy, and charged with electricity.
Declan sat beside Norah in the back seat, staring straight ahead as the neon city lights streaked across his sharp features.
“You didn't tell me you had a background in corporate law,” Declan said, breaking the silence.
“You didn't ask,” Norah replied, looking out the window at the blurred rain. “I told you before I started working for you—my ex-husband left me with a mountain of fraudulent debt and legal paperwork. I had to learn how to read every predatory contract in the state just to keep from going to prison for things I didn't do.”
Declan turned his head, studying her profile in the dim dashboard light. The tough, defensive armor she wore around him seemed a little lighter tonight.
“Your debt,” Declan said quietly. “How much was it?”
Norah turned to look at him, her brown eyes narrowing. “That’s none of your business, Mr. Hayes.”
“Everything in Bellgrave is my business, Norah,” he replied, his voice dropping into that deep, hypnotic rumble that made her breath hitch. “Tell me the number.”
She hesitated, then sighed, crossing her arms. “Seventy-four thousand dollars. Plus interest.”
Declan didn't flinch. He reached into his inner suit pocket, pulled out a gold-plated fountain pen and a blank, embossed checkbook, and scrawled a line of numbers across a slip of paper before tearing it out and handing it to her.
Norah looked down at the check.
Her breath caught in her throat. The figures written across the line totaled one hundred thousand dollars—enough to wipe out every collection agency, clear her credit, and buy her a house anywhere in the world.
“What is this?” she whispered, her hands trembling as she held the paper.
“Severance pay,” Declan said softly. “Your contract is fulfilled, Norah. The threat from Marcus is neutralized. The safe room is secure. You can walk out those front doors tomorrow morning, pay off your debts, and never look at another bloodstain or bullet wound again.”
Norah stared at the check. Then, slowly, she raised her head and looked into Declan Hayes’s gray eyes.
For the first time since she had walked into his trauma center a week ago, she saw something in his gaze that terrified her far more than any gun barrel or cartel boss.
She saw a man who didn't want her to leave.
“And what if I don't want to walk out?” Norah whispered, her heart hammering against her ribs.
May you like
Declan’s jaw tightened. He reached out, his large, warm fingers gently catching her chin, tilting her face up so she had nowhere else to look.
“If you stay, Norah,” Declan murmured, his voice thick with a dangerous, possessive intensity, “you don't just walk into my world. You own it with me.”
