Chapter 3 - The Truth in the Melody
The study was vast, smelling of aged leather, cedarwood, and expensive bourbon. A dying fire crackled in the marble hearth, casting long, dancing shadows across shelves packed with heavy legal volumes and historical texts.
Nicholas closed the heavy oak doors behind them with a definitive click, shutting out the rest of the world.
He walked over to his desk, poured two fingers of amber liquid into a crystal tumbler, but didn't drink it. He simply leaned against the edge of the mahogany wood, his dark eyes locked onto Taylor.
— You heard them, didn't you? he asked. No accusation in his tone. Just a flat, dangerous certainty.
Taylor gripped her music folio so tightly her knuckles turned white.
— I heard enough to know that the man who pays me two hundred and fifty dollars an hour to teach his traumatized daughter piano is not a simple businessman, Mr. Marino, she said, her voice shaking slightly despite her best efforts to keep it steady.
Nicholas didn't flinch. He let out a slow, heavy breath, running a hand through his dark hair.
— People call me a lot of things, Taylor. Crime boss. Syndicate head. Monster. None of them are entirely wrong, he said, his voice dropping into a raw, gravelly cadence. But I am a father first. And my daughter hasn't smiled, hasn't sung, hasn't lived since her mother was murdered in a crossfire meant for me.
Taylor’s anger evaporated, replaced by a sharp, piercing wave of empathy that terrified her almost as much as his confession.
— And bringing me here? Is that part of your protection detail? A musical shield against your enemies? she asked bitterly.
— When I heard you sing that lullaby in the park—the exact song my wife sang to Chiara every single night before she died—I thought it was a setup, Nicholas admitted, stepping closer, his gaze searching her face with desperate intensity. I thought Dante Moretti had planted you to get close to my family. I had you investigated within twenty-four hours. Your entire life is an open book. Clean. Honest. Ordinary.
He stopped just a foot away from her. The clean, masculine scent of him—soap, cedar, and danger—surrounded her.
— Then why did you hire me? Why keep me here if you knew I could expose you?
— Because for eight months, nothing worked, Nicholas whispered, his voice cracking with a vulnerability he showed to no one else. Therapists, specialists, high-priced doctors—they all failed. You walked into a park, you didn't know who I was, and you brought my daughter back to life with a song she hadn't heard since her mother's grave was fresh. I don't care about the risk, Taylor. I would burn this entire city to the ground before I let anyone take away the only person who has made my little girl smile again.
Taylor stared up into his face, realizing with a sinking, terrifying jolt that she was standing dangerously close to a man who lived in the crosshairs of a brutal underworld war—and she didn't want to run away.
— If I stay, she said quietly, her voice trembling with a new kind of resolve, you stop lying to me. No secrets about what happens outside these walls.
May you like
Nicholas held her gaze for a long, electric moment. Then, slowly, a ghost of a smile touched the corners of his hard mouth.
— Deal, he murmured.
