Chapter 4

Seeing Cassian erupt, the men behind him didn't dare breathe a word.

In silence they turned the freezer down to negative one hundred degrees.

In an instant a wave of bone-chilling wind screamed through the vents, hitting me like knives made of frost.

The cold robbed me of speech. My teeth chattered uncontrollably, and I couldn't form a complete sentence.

Then, through the haze of numbness, a sharp, tearing pain erupted from my lower abdomen.

I forced my heavy head downward, and froze.

A stream of bright red blood was flowing from between my legs, winding like a small creek across the icy ground.

In the deathly cold, it steamed against the frost, creating a crimson mist.

The blood melted the ice around me, seeping through the cracks in the floor.

That's when it hit me.

I knew what was happening.

Clutching my belly, I screamed hoarsely toward the glass. "Cassian! Let me out! The baby.... Save our baby!"

He was still shaking with fury, but the moment he saw the blood, the same blood now melting ice and creeping toward his feet, the color drained from his face.

Panic replaced the cruelty in his eyes.

He seized the man beside him, shouting frantically, "Move! Get the freezer key! Didn't we clear it with the doctor before we put her in? How the hell did this happen?!"

The man pressed the key into his palm.

But Cassian's hands were trembling so hard he couldn't hold on to it.

The key fell, right at Serafina's feet.

He spun and gripped her arm.

"Serafina! Open the door. Get Adriana out now, hurry!"

Startled by his outburst, Serafina scrambled up, not even bothering with her shoes.

She rushed to the freezer door, throwing a glance back at Cassian. Then, with her back to him, she slid the key into the lock.

In that instant I caught a flash of something sinister in her eyes, a look of triumph, malice, and cruelty.

And then, crack.

A sharp sound cut through the air.

Serafina turned and dropped to her knees in front of Cassian, crying out, "Cassian, the key.. it snapped!"

His face turned ghostly pale.

He stumbled forward, snatched up the broken key, and demanded, "What do you mean it snapped?! How could it break? Get someone, get a man who can pick a lock, now!"

By now the blood had spread across nearly the entire freezer floor, glistening warm against the icy white.

I was groaning in agony, unable to hold it in.

But Serafina knelt there with crocodile tears in her eyes, her voice trembling with false concern. "Cassian, she hasn't admitted her mistake yet... You said it yourself, this was a chance to humble her. Everyone here is watching..."

"And what about what I suffered in that hospital bed? Are you really just going to let it go? You swore to me you'd see me made right."

The corner of her mouth twitched upward, a half-beat too early, before the tears had finished falling.

Cassian hesitated. He waved off the man he'd sent for another key.

Then he turned back to the glass, striking the freezer door again and again as he called to me, his voice now thick with desperation and pleading.

"Adriana, please. Just admit you were wrong. For the baby, alright?"

"Just say it. Say you're sorry, and I'll open the door. You don't want anything to happen to our child either, do you? I'm begging you, Adriana, just be a little softer, okay?"

The blood loss was making my vision blur.

My body collapsed into the pool of blood, and with a trembling voice I whispered toward the figure beyond the glass, "Cassian... let me out... If you don't, my father will kill you..."

Serafina's eyes glinted with a savage smile, but her voice stayed drenched in that same false innocence. "Adriana... are you really this confused? Don Falcone went into the ground half a year ago. The Falcone family fell months back! Just admit you were wrong already. No one can save you now."

Laughter and jeers broke out among the crew outside the glass.

"Still dreaming, huh? Gonna have your papa put Cassian in a grave? Miss Falcone, the old Don's rotting somewhere they don't dig you up from. If anybody's getting killed twice over, it's him."

They laughed, tugging at Cassian's sleeve like hangers-on scenting blood.

"Cassian, this woman still hasn't learned. She's playing it up. The kid's probably fine. Let her sit in there a while longer!"

"He's right, Cassian. She worked Serafina over bad. You can't let her walk easy."

The freezer floor was already slick with blood.

They couldn't see it, but I could feel it, the faint fluttering inside my belly growing weaker and weaker.

I began to wail without control, screaming in agony.

Cassian paced restlessly beyond the door. When his eyes came back to me, there was a trace of helplessness in them. His thumb worked at the signet ring on his right hand, turning it, turning it.

"Adriana, stop waiting for your father to come rescue you. He's really dead. Just admit you were wrong, okay? Just say the words, I was wrong, and I'll let you out!"

"My dear wife, give it up. Your father isn't coming to save you this time."

The moment the words left his mouth, the door to the room was kicked off its hinges with a thunderous crash.

A squad of the Don's personal enforcers stormed in, armed to the last man, moving like violence with the safety off.

The room went dead still. Every made man in it straightened without meaning to.

And from beyond the door came a deep, commanding voice, the kind of voice that ended conversations mid-sentence.

"Who said her father wouldn't come save her?"