Chapter 6 - FROM JEALOUSY TO ICE
Saraphina did not lift her head.
She kept her forehead pressed against the fabric of her apron, her breath hitching in ragged, stuttering gasps that shook her small frame. The cold stone of the hallway bit through her black uniform, but the chill inside her bones was colder.
For eight months, she had carried this solitary, crushing mountain entirely alone. She had taken this job because the Blackwood family paid double the market rate for domestic staff, accepting the terrifying rumors of midnight visitors, armored convoys, and armed guards at the perimeter because the cash paid down the pharmacy bills every two weeks. She had eaten bread crusts in her room, mended her own stockings until the heels were threadbare, and swallowed every ounce of pride she possessed, all to keep a bed occupied in a sterile room in Manhattan.
And now, the man who owned this empire was kneeling on the floor beside her, asking questions she could not afford to answer.
“Please,” Saraphina choked out, the word muffled against her knees, hot tears soaking through the crumpled paper in her fists. “Please, Mr. Blackwood… just let me get up. Let me go to my room.”
“Look at me, Saraphina,” Kieran murmured.
The command was gentle, but beneath the gentleness lay an unyielding, ancient resolve.
Saraphina slowly raised her head.
Her face was flushed, her pale porcelain skin splotched with red from weeping, her dark brown eyes swimming with unshed tears that spilled over her lashes as she met his gaze. Up close, in the dim, golden light filtering from the kitchen, she could see the faint lines of tension carved around Kieran’s eyes, the dark stubble shadowing his strong jaw, and the absolute absence of mockery on his features.
The dangerous, jealous don who had stalked into the kitchen ten minutes ago was gone. Standing in his place was a man looking at a wound he had not realized was bleeding under his own roof.
“You’re killing yourself,” Kieran said quietly, his voice a low, gravelly vibration that resonated in the narrow hallway. His dark eyes flicked over her hollowed cheekbones, the faint blue veins beneath her paper-thin eyelids, and her trembling, raw fingers. “You’ve lost fifteen pounds since August. You barely touch your meals. You’re working double shifts and sneaking into the city on your only day off to sit in an intensive care waiting room.”
He glanced down at the blue-and-white hospital paper she was trying to hide.
“A hundred and forty thousand dollars, Saraphina,” Kieran continued, his voice dropping into a register that was deadly calm. “That’s not a broken bone. That’s long-term critical care. Life support. Specialized pulmonary therapy.”
Saraphina’s chin quivered violently. She squeezed the paper tighter, her knuckles turning white.
“It’s my responsibility,” she whispered, her voice cracking with fierce, desperate pride. “It’s my family. I don't want your charity, Mr. Blackwood. I don't want your pity, and I don't want your money. Please… just let me handle it.”
A bitter, humorless smile tugged at the corner of Kieran’s lips, though his dark eyes remained solemn, burning with an unshakeable, dark fire.
“Handle it?” Kieran echoed softly, leaning in half an inch closer, his presence warm, solid, and immovable. “You make sixteen hundred dollars a week, little girl. You could work in this house until your hair turns gray, and you wouldn't clear the interest on that invoice. The hospital will cut the lines in forty-eight hours, transfer the patient to a state hospice in the Bronx, and you’ll spend the rest of your life crying on my kitchen floor at three in the morning.”
He didn't say it to be cruel; he said it with the brutal, mathematical clarity of a man who dealt in life, death, and leverage every single day.
May you like
He held her gaze, refusing to let her look away.
“I asked you a question, Saraphina,” Kieran said, his baritone softening into an intimate, urgent cadence that filled the narrow space between them. “Who’s in that bed?”
