Chapter 2 - The Master Suite
The master suite on the third floor of the Kane manor was an expansive, wood-paneled sanctuary smelling of amber, dry birch logs, and eucalyptus.
Roman carried me straight through the bedroom into the adjoining marble bathroom.
He didn't call for a maid. He didn't summon a nurse. He laid me down on the heated velvet chaise lounge beside the deep soaking tub, turned on the gold fixtures, and tested the water with his bare wrist until the temperature was perfectly warm.
He knelt beside me, unbuttoning his soaked cuffs, rolling his white linen sleeves up to his elbows.
"Let me help you, Bianca," he murmured.
With infinite, trembling patience, Roman unfastened the ruined buttons of my cream dress, sliding the waterlogged fabric from my shoulders. He took a warm, thick linen washcloth, lathered it with gentle lavender soap, and began washing the freezing mud from my legs, my ankles, and my bruised feet.
Every time my breath hitched from exhaustion, he stopped, pressing his forehead against my swollen belly, whispering words of fierce, quiet devotion to our unborn child.
"Daddy is here, little bird," he whispered against my skin. "Nobody will ever hurt you. Nobody."
When he washed my scalp, his hands slowed.
His fingers gently traced the uneven patches where the shears had cut too close to the skin, lingering over the small dried scratches along the nape of my neck. A single tear—hot, silent, and heavy—dropped from Roman’s cheek, splashing against my collarbone.
I reached out, my fingers tangling in the collar of his wet shirt, pulling him upward until his face was inches from mine.
"Roman," I whispered, my voice rough. "Don't look at me like that."
"They humiliated you," he choked out, his jaw clenched so tight the muscle fluttered beneath his skin. "In my house. While I was eighty miles away signing shipping manifests. I promised you that you would be safe with me."
"I am safe," I said, looking straight into his gray eyes. "Hair grows back, Roman. Dignity doesn't leave because someone holds a pair of scissors. But your mother... she isn't acting alone."
Roman stilled. "What do you mean?"
"Before she cut my hair," I said, remembering the cold, calculating conversation in the drawing room thirty minutes earlier, "your cousin Julian was with her. He brought a leather portfolio stamped with the seal of The Valenti Syndicate."
Roman’s eyes narrowed into razor-sharp slivers.
"Julian?"
"He told your mother that Don Antonio Valenti had agreed to finance the expansion of the Red Hook container berths," I continued, resting my hand over Roman’s knuckles. "On one condition: that the future heir of House Kane carried Valenti blood through an arranged marriage with Antonio's daughter, Sophia. Julian said my baby was an operational liability that needed to be terminated before the contracts were signed on Friday."
A deadly, absolute silence fell over the bathroom.
The water continued to lap against the marble rim of the tub, but the atmosphere turned to liquid nitrogen.
The pieces interlocked with terrifying, geometric clarity.
Vivienne hadn't simply acted out of aristocratic snobbery.
She and Julian had orchestrated a coup within the syndicate, attempting to force Roman into a strategic dynastic union with the Valenti family by brutalizing me until I miscarried or fled the city in terror.
The heavy bathroom door clicked open.
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Dr. Sarah Lin, the family’s private obstetrician and one of the few medical professionals Roman trusted with his life, stepped into the room carrying a portable ultrasound scanner and a sterile diagnostic kit.
"Roman," Dr. Lin said, her tone professional, urgent, and calm. "Step back and let me scan her. We need to check fetal heart tones and uterine wall integrity immediately."
