Chapter 4 - THE NIGHT GRAYHAVEN BURNED
The bullet struck the wall behind Damian.
His guards moved instantly.
One pushed Damian to the floor.
Another pulled Elena behind the desk.
Mara threw herself over Lila.
Outside, engines roared.
The estate lights went dark.
Viktor had stopped pretending.
Gunfire erupted near the front gate.
Damian’s security captain shouted orders through the radio, but half the guards never answered.
Viktor had bought them.
Smoke began filling the west corridor.
“They set fire to the kitchen wing,” someone shouted.
Mara’s blood went cold.
The servants’ rooms were beside the kitchen.
Several employees were still inside.
Damian struggled to stand.
“You cannot move,” Elena warned.
“I am not dying on the floor.”
He took a pistol from the guard beside him.
His hand shook, but his eyes did not.
“Where is Viktor?”
A radio crackled.
A frightened voice answered.
“East garage. He has a vehicle waiting.”
Damian turned toward Mara.
“There is a tunnel beneath the chapel. Take Lila and Elena.”
“I am not leaving without the kitchen staff,” Mara said.
Damian stared at her.
“That was not a request.”
“My mother is in that wing.”
Mara had never mentioned her mother because Rosa Reyes had worked quietly in the laundry rooms and disliked attention.
Now smoke spread beneath the library door.
Lila began coughing.
Damian looked toward his captain.
“Send two men with Mara. Get everyone out.”
Mara picked up Lila.
Before she left, Damian caught her arm.
“If I do not come back—”
“You will.”
He looked at Lila.
“That is not how my life usually works.”
Mara held his gaze.
“Then perhaps your life should begin working differently.”
She ran.
The kitchen corridor was already burning.
Mara found Rosa with two cooks near the pantry, trapped behind a fallen beam. Damian’s men lifted it while flames climbed the walls.
Lila clung to Mara’s neck.
Her hearing device emitted a loud squeal.
Then she turned her head toward the floor.
“Someone is under us.”
Mara could barely hear her through the fire alarms.
“What?”
“Knocking.”
One of the guards shook his head.
“There is no basement here.”
Lila pointed toward the pantry.
“Under the metal shelf.”
They moved it.
Beneath was a trapdoor.
Inside, they found a young woman with her hands bound.
She was thin, bruised, and barely conscious.
Beside her lay a little girl of about five.
The child’s dark hair had been cut unevenly. A silver pendant hung around her neck.
The same pendant Damian wore beneath his shirt.
Ana Petrov had survived.
Viktor had imprisoned her in hidden properties for years, moving her whenever Damian’s men came close. He brought her and the child to Grayhaven that night because he intended to kill them in the fire and eliminate the last evidence of Damian’s heir.
Mara carried the girl.
A guard lifted Ana.
They escaped through the chapel tunnel moments before the kitchen roof collapsed.
Outside, rain poured over the burning house.
Damian emerged from the east entrance supported by Elena.
His shirt was stained with blood.
Viktor followed several yards behind, one arm twisted by a guard.
The moment Damian saw the little girl in Mara’s arms, he stopped.
Ana lifted her head.
“Damian.”
He stared at her as though the fire, rain, and armed men around them had disappeared.
Then the child opened her eyes.
Damian crossed the distance slowly.
“What is her name?” he asked.
Ana began to cry.
“Nadia.”
Damian touched the pendant around the girl’s neck.
“My father gave this to me.”
“I know,” Ana whispered. “You gave it to me the last night I saw you.”
Viktor laughed bitterly from behind them.
“This changes nothing.”
Damian looked at his brother.
“It changes everything.”
Viktor smiled.
“You are too weak to control anything.”
Lila stepped from Mara’s arms and stood beside Damian.
She placed her hand against his chest.
“Not as weak.”
Damian looked down at her.
May you like
Then he turned toward Viktor.
“My heart is still beating.”
