"What happens when Don Kieran's wife is kidnapped… and no one knows who's behind it?" ~
What was he doing here?
Elias D'Angelo's eyes snapped straight to me, sharp enough to cut skin. Kieran's whole posture changed — shoulders squared, jaw locked — and then he looked at me.
I knew that look.
Leave.
Without a word, I turned and walked upstairs, But I didn't actually go to our room. I stopped halfway up, and pressed myself against the wall where the staircase curved. From there, I could hear everything.
Elias's voice was fire.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Elias hissed. "Have you lost your mind?"
Kieran didn't answer.
Elias's glare sharpened on him.
"You think I wouldn't find out? You struck the German Mafia? You attacked them over a woman?"
Kieran's jaw clenched. "They touched her."
"And because of that," Elias snapped, "you jeopardized international alliances, lost us three shipment deals, and made us look unstable in front of our partners!"
Elias stepped closer, voice rising.
"All because of your little wife!"
Kieran's entire shoulders tensed.
"Watch. Your. Mouth."
Elias scoffed. "I will not."
Then, cruelly:
"You married a stripper and now you're throwing the empire into chaos for her?"
Those words pierced straight through me.
I squeezed the railing until my fingers turned white.
Kieran's voice dropped into something deadly.
"You will not disrespect her in this house."
Elias laughed bitterly.
"Oh? You've chosen her? Over your legacy?"
Silence cut the room clean.
Kieran didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
The silence was the answer.
Every time I stepped outside with Kieran, something bad happened. Was I cursed? Seriously, what was wrong with me? Why couldn't things just… be normal around me?
I didn't want to stay around Kieran anymore if all I ever did was break things — business deals, family respect, alliances, peace.
And deep down, I wondered…
Was he thinking it too?
⸻
The Next Morning
I didn't sleep. My brain replayed Elias's words on a loop.
When Kieran walked past me in the hallway, he didn't even look at me.
"Can I… see Adrien today?" I asked, voice small.
He stopped, but kept his eyes forward.
"You can go."
Relief washed through me—until he continued, voice flat:
"But you don't go alone."
My chest sank.
"I'm assigning security details. You don't make a move without guards. You understand?"
He didn't look at my face once.
That hurt more than Elias's shouting.
I just nodded.
"Okay."
We left the mansion in silence. I sat in the backseat of the black SUV, two guards with me — big, silent men. My thoughts were loud enough anyway.
Maybe Elias was right.
Maybe I was ruining everything.
We were ten minutes from the hospital when everything went wrong.
At first, it was nothing — the hum of the engine, the low murmur of guards talking into their earpieces, the city passing by in soft blurs of gray.
Then—
Headlights.
Blinding.
Fast.
Wrong.
A pair of white beams cut across the lane—too close, too fast—coming directly toward my window.
"Ma'am—!" the guard shouted.
I didn't even have time to scream.
BOOM.
The crash hit like a giant fist slamming into us.
My body snapped sideways, the seatbelt cutting into my ribs as glass exploded into the air.
The world became noise and metal and pain.
The SUV skidded. Tires screeched. Something slammed into us again.
We flipped.
Once—
Twice—
A third time—my shoulder slammed into the roof, the world turning upside down, sideways, sideways again—until everything finally crashed to a violent stop.
My ears rang.
My mouth tasted blood.
My vision spun like a broken carousel.
Somewhere, the guards groaned.
Sparks popped from the engine, painting the darkness with small bursts of orange.
Gasoline.
The smell hit me next—sharp, chemical, terrifying.
I tried to breathe. My chest screamed. My ribs felt cracked, maybe broken. The world blurred every time I blinked.
Then—
footsteps.
I heard them before I saw them —
A shadow moved across the cracked glass, bending closer.
A hand gripped the mangled door. It groaned under the weight. Someone was trying to pull it open.
I tried to lift my head, to see, but I couldn't. Darkness nipped at the edges of my vision. The shadow loomed closer. I felt the pressure of the person's hands, the scrape of movement, the air shift as they reached for me.
Please… don't let it be who I think it is.
And then… my body went limp.
Consciousness slipped away.
Kieran's Office — 47th Floor
The meeting room was silent except for the shuffle of papers and the low hum of the projector. Executives sat straight-backed, terrified to breathe too loudly while Kieran reviewed numbers with a cold, unreadable stare.
Then—
The door burst open.
Everyone froze.
A guard stumbled inside, chest heaving, sweat dripping down his temples.
Kieran's chair turned sharply.
His eyes flared with murder.
"Che cazzo ci fai qui?"
What the fuck are you doing here?
His voice cut the room in half.
No one had ever interrupted Kieran D'Angelo in a meeting and lived comfortably afterward.
The guard swallowed hard, shaking.
"D-Don… Don Kieran…"
Kieran's jaw clenched.
"Speak. Now."
The guard's throat bobbed as he forced the words out.
"Mrs. D'Angelo…"
His voice cracked.
"S-she was involved in an accident."
Kieran's heart stopped.
The papers in his hand slipped without him noticing.
For the first time—
the very first time—
everyone in that room saw it.
The fear.
The ice-cold shock ripping through Kieran's expression.
The color drained from his face.
He looked nothing like the untouchable Don they knew.
He looked human.
He looked terrified.
He looked like a man who just realized the universe was cruel enough to target the only thing he couldn't afford to lose.
Kieran stepped forward, voice low, deadly, shaking.
"What… kind of accident?"
The guard's lips trembled.
"T-the SUV was hit, sir. Flipped multiple times. The team— they're… they're all down."
Kieran's pulse hammered in his ears.
He inhaled sharply, like the air suddenly had knives in it.
"Where is she?"
A long, horrible pause.
The guard lowered his head, shoulders crumbling.
"S-sir…"
Kieran's breath stalled mid-inhale.
The guard forced the words out:
"She… she got kidnapped."