The morning air was thick with a biting chill as Violet stepped out of her apartment, her mind already shifting into "nanny mode." But the moment her boot hit the cracked concrete of the landing, she stopped. Resting against her scarred wooden door was a box.
It wasn't wrapped in the aggressive, high-end gold foil Roman's people favored. It was wrapped in plain, clinical white paper, tied with a string of black twine. There was no card.
Violet felt a flare of white-hot irritation. He promised. She had sat at his table, shared his food, and listened to him talk about toasted marshmallows, and the first thing he did was stomp all over the boundaries she had set. She snatched the box up, her fingers digging into the cardboard. It was heavy- unusually so. She didn't open it. She didn't need to see the diamonds or the designer silk inside to know she was furious.
Forty minutes later, she didn't walk into the Thorne estate; she stormed in.
The heavy oak doors barely had time to glide open before she was through them, her boots clicking like gunfire against the marble. She bypassed the foyer and headed straight for the glass-walled study where she knew Roman held his morning briefings.
"Roman Thorne!"
Roman was standing by the window, a phone to his ear. He turned, his icy blue eyes widening as he took in the sight of her. She looked like a storm cloud in denim, her blonde hair slightly frizzed from the wind, her face flushed with a beautiful, terrifying rage.
He hung up the phone without a word. "Violet. You're early."
"And you're a liar!" she snapped, marching up to his desk and slamming the white-wrapped box down onto the mahogany surface.
The thud was heavy and metallic. "What happened to Rule Number Four? What happened to 'I'm a man of my word'? I told you, no gifts. I told you I don't want your charity or your guilt-bought shiny things!"
Roman looked at the box, then back at her, his expression shifting from confusion to a sudden, stony stillness. "Violet, calm down. What are you talking about?"
"This!" She jabbed a finger at the box. "It was at my door this morning. Don't play the 'clumsy, innocent billionaire' with me, Roman. Who else would know where I live? Who else has a black card and an obsession with 'providing'?"
Roman didn't touch the box. He stepped around the desk, his presence looming over her, but his eyes were fixed on the white paper. "I didn't send that."
Violet let out a sharp, mocking laugh. "Oh, please. If it wasn't you, then who? One of the construction workers from the coffee shop? Howard the homeless man? Don't insult my intelligence."
"Violet," Roman's voice dropped into a low, terrifyingly calm register. "I gave you my word. I haven't sent anything to your apartment. My security team hasn't been near your block since I dropped you off. If I were going to break my promise, the paper wouldn't be white, and the string wouldn't be twine. It would have been delivered by Tyson, not left on a doorstep like a milk delivery."
The conviction in his voice hit her like a bucket of ice water. She looked from him to the box, the anger in her chest suddenly being replaced by a cold, creeping dread. She realized he was telling the truth. Roman was many things- aggressive, possessive, bossy, but he was too proud to lie about something like this.
"If you didn't send it..." she whispered, her voice losing its sassy edge, "then who did?"
Roman's energy shifted instantly. The "man of the house" disappeared, replaced by the predator. He reached out and slowly pulled the box toward him. Using a silver letter opener, he sliced through the black twine and peeled back the white paper.
Inside the box wasn't jewelry. It wasn't a bag.
It was a heavy, antique iron birdcage. The door of the cage was swung wide open, and resting inside was a single, withered, dead lily- blackened and dried until it was nothing but a skeleton of a flower.
Violet let out a choked breath, stepping back until her spine hit the wall. The color drained from her face, her blue eyes going wide with a terror that made Roman's heart stop.
"Violet?" Roman's voice was a growl of protective fury. He moved to her side, his hands hovering over her shoulders, wanting to touch her but sensing her fragility. "What is this? Who sends a dead flower in a cage?"
She couldn't speak. She just stared at the iron bars. The "technicality" of her marriage suddenly felt like a noose tightening around her neck.
"Tyson!" Roman roared, his voice shaking the glass walls.
The assistant appeared in the doorway seconds later. "Sir?"
"Get Miller on the line. Now. Tell him I don't care what he's doing, I want him in this office in ten minutes. And get security to the South Side apartment. I want the tapes from every camera within five blocks."
The ten minutes felt like ten hours. Roman had forced Violet to sit in his leather armchair, placing a glass of water in her hand that she was too numb to drink. He paced the room like a caged animal himself, his aggression radiating off him in waves so thick the air felt electric. Every few seconds, he would glance at her, his eyes burning with a possessive, dark heat.
Someone had touched her world. Someone had found the girl he was trying so hard to protect.
There was a knock, and Miller, the PI, stepped in. He looked haggard, his coat damp from the morning mist. He looked at the box on the desk, then at Violet, then finally at Roman.
"Miller," Roman barked. "Talk to me. Who left that at her door?"
Miller didn't answer immediately. He took a slow breath and adjusted his hat. "Mr. Thorne... perhaps we should take this into the conference room. It's... sensitive."
"No," Roman snapped. "Violet stays. She's the one being threatened. Talk."
Miller sighed, looking at Roman with a grim expression. "I've been running the leads on the courier. I tracked the payment and the delivery order. Sir, you're not going to like what I have to say. You should probably sit down."
"I'm not sitting," Roman growled. "Who is he?"
Miller looked at his folder, then back at Roman. "The gift was sent by Ryder Vane. Heir to the Vane Shipping fortune. Just moved back into the city from the West Coast."
Roman's face went completely bloodless, but not from fear- from a searing, white-hot rage. RyderVane was a run-of-the-mill billionaire only in the sense that he had too much money; in reality, he was a spoiled, reckless playboy known for stalking whatever 'it-girl' caught his fancy until they gave in. He wasn't a ghost from a dark past, but he was a very real, very persistent vulture from the present.
"Vane," Roman whispered, the name sounding like a curse. "He thinks he can just mark a territory? He thinks he can leave toys at her door?"
"He's been asking around the clubs, sir," Miller said. "He saw her set at The Gilded Lily three nights ago. Apparently, he told his associates he found a 'songbird' that needed a more expensive cage. He's been trying to buy out her contract behind the scenes, too."
Roman turned to look at Violet. She was curled in the chair, her blonde hair shielding her face, her hands trembling. She wasn't the sassy singer or the humble nanny right now. She was a woman who realized she was being hunted by someone else- another man with enough money to be dangerous, even if his intentions were just attention.
Roman felt a surge of lethal, cold-blooded possessiveness. His energy tripled, filling the room until it was suffocating. He walked over to Violet and knelt in front of her, ignoring the PI and the assistant. He took her trembling hands in his, his grip firm and grounding.
"Violet," he said, his voice a low, fierce vow. "Look at me."
She slowly raised her head, her blue eyes swimming with a mixture of fear and fury.
"He's not touching you," Roman promised, his icy blue eyes glowing with a dark, aggressive promise of total dominance. "I don't care how many billions he has. I don't care about his 'theatrics.' You are under my roof now. And if Ryder Vane thinks he can play games with what belongs in my world, he's going to find out how a dragon deals with a scavenger."
Violet looked at him, and for the first time, the "dragon's fire" didn't scare her. It was the only thing keeping the cold at bay. But she also saw the look in Roman's eyes- the realization that he wasn't the only billionaire who had noticed her. The competition had arrived, and Roman looked ready to burn the city down to win.