Chapter 4 - The Closed Door of the Library
The west corridor of the Blackwell estate was lined with portraits of ancestors whose names were whispered in banking and political circles for over a century. Tonight, however, the corridor felt less like a gallery and more like a executioner's hall.
Senator Caldwell hurried down the hallway, his face flushed with a mixture of righteous anger and rising panic, flanked by two of his personal security guards and the visibly sweating police chief.
"This is an outrage!" Senator Caldwell hissed, catching up to Damon just as he reached the heavy mahogany doors of the private library. "I am a United States Senator! My son is a graduate of Georgetown! You cannot simply—"
Click.
Damon didn't knock. He raised his right hand and kicked the heavy mahogany door squarely in the center, shattering the brass lock and sending the door crashing inward against the bookshelves inside.
The scene inside the library was frozen in time.
Preston Caldwell sat in a leather armchair by the fireplace, a glass of brandy in one hand, laughing with two of his associates while a third stood by the window smoking an illegal cigar. When the door burst open, Preston blinked against the sudden intrusion, his arrogant expression curdling into irritation.
"Dad? What the hell? We were just having a quiet—"
Preston stopped.
Damon Blackwell stepped into the room. Behind him stood Matteo, and behind Matteo stood four heavily armed enforcers who immediately fanned out, sealing every exit.
"Preston," Damon said softly, his voice dropping into that quiet, terrifying register that Kate had heard upstairs. "Stand up."
Preston stood slowly, smoothing the front of his vest, trying to project a swagger he didn't feel. "Look, Mr. Blackwell, I don't know what kind of game you're playing here, but my father is—"
Crack.
Damon moved so fast that none of the men in the room even saw the punch coming. His fist connected squarely with Preston’s jaw, sending the twenty-eight-year-old flying backward over the leather armchair to crash into a mahogany side table, shattering a crystal decanter into a thousand sparkling pieces.
"Preston!" Senator Caldwell shrieked, rushing forward. "You insane bastard! You just assaulted my son!"
"Assaulted?" Damon turned around slowly, wiping a nonexistent speck of dust from his black cuff. He looked at the police chief standing in the doorway, paralyzed with fear. "Chief. You heard the senator. Assault implies a fair fight. This is an execution of a different sort."
Preston scrambled backward across the Persian rug, clutching his bleeding jaw, spitting a tooth onto the floor. "Dad! Do something! He's crazy!"
"Damon, I am warning you!" Senator Caldwell shouted, his face purple with rage, stepping between Damon and his son. "I will have your licenses revoked! I will have every asset you own seized by morning! You will rot in a federal—"
Damon reached out, grabbed the front of the senator’s expensive silk tie, and yanked him forward with enough force to lift the older man onto his toes, bringing their faces inches apart.
"Senator," Damon whispered, his voice like grinding ice. "Your son spent twenty minutes tonight locking a third-floor storage room door and breaking the arm of a nineteen-year-old girl whose mother is dying of cancer in a charity ward two miles from here."
Senator Caldwell went completely rigid. The color drained from his face until he looked like a corpse. "I... I don't know what you're talking about... some maid—"
"A human being," Damon corrected, his grip tightening until the senator was choking on his own collar. "A human being who works under my roof. Which means she belongs to my household. Which means touching her is an act of war against me."
Damon shoved the senator away so hard he crashed into the bookshelf, gasping for air.
"Matteo," Damon commanded without looking back.
May you like
"Boss?"
"Clear the library. Leave the senator and his son. And bring in the doctor’s medical report from upstairs. We’re going to have a very educational conversation about anatomy."
