Chapter 5 - Unspoken Sins
"Hold still, you idiot. If you keep moving, I’m going to sew your shoulder to your coat."
Claire’s voice was shaking, but her hands were steady.
I was sitting on the wooden floor with my back propped against the heavy stone hearth, my coat and shirt cut away. A bottle of high-proof moonshine sat uncapped on the floor beside a curved sewing needle and dental floss. The pain was blinding—a white-hot iron being pressed into my flesh as Claire stitched the through-and-through wound where the bullet had grazed my shoulder blade.
I didn't make a sound. I couldn't. I just kept staring at her face.
Up close, the toll of the last month was written in every line of her skin. Dark circles bruised the skin beneath her eyes. Her lips were cracked from the dry cabin air. But beneath the exhaustion was the woman who had captivated me the moment she walked into my office five years ago to pitch a community center design: unbreakable, terrifyingly intelligent, and fundamentally pure.
"You should have let Michael send his men," she whispered, pulling the thread tight.
I hissed through my teeth, the muscles in my jaw knotting. "Michael didn't make the mistake that drove you here. I did."
Claire paused. Her hands hovered over my skin for a heartbeat before she reached for a clean strip of cotton sheeting and bound the wound tightly.
"You think this is about a mistake, Daniel?" she said, her voice dropping into that terrifying, quiet register that made me feel smaller than dust. "A mistake is forgetting to call. A mistake is missing an anniversary. What you did was invite a venomous snake into the company my father warned you about, while looking me in the eye and acting like I was hysterical for asking why you smelled like perfume."
"Elena was working with Marcus," I said, my voice hoarse. "They were using her to keep me distracted while they set up the Moretti takeover."
Claire sat back on her heels, resting a hand heavily on the curve of her stomach. She let out a dry, bitter laugh that had no humor in it.
"I know that, Daniel. I’m the one who uncovered the paper trail! I spent three months staring at financial transactions, listening to you lie to my face, realizing that the brilliant, ruthless Daniel Carter was so blinded by his own vanity that he couldn't see his closest friend preparing a noose for him!"
Tears finally spilled over her lashes, tracing hot tracks down her pale cheeks.
"Do you know what that felt like?" she cried, her voice echoing in the rafters of the cabin. "Sitting in that penthouse, feeling our daughter kick inside me, knowing that any day, Marcus could poison our food or Moretti’s men could blow our car apart, and my husband—the great protector—was too busy feeling powerful in a hotel suite to notice?"
Every word struck me harder than any bullet ever could.
The blood loss made me dizzy, but the truth made me sick. She was right. Every single excuse I had told myself over the last four months—that I was stressed, that the pressure of the empire was crushing me, that Elena was just an outlet—was a lie. It was pure, pathetic ego. I had allowed myself to be seduced not by another woman's body, but by the reflection of my own untouchable power.
I reached out with my uninjured right hand. My fingers hovered in the air, terrified of touching her, terrified that she would recoil.
"Claire," I whispered, my chest aching so violently I could barely draw breath. "I have never hated anything in this world more than I hate the man I became."
Claire looked down at my outstretched hand. Her chest rose and fell in ragged gasps.
"You broke my heart, Daniel. You took the only place in the world where I felt safe and you burned it down."
"I know."
"And now you come here, bleeding on my floor, killing men on my porch..." She choked on a sob, pressing both hands against her stomach. "What are we supposed to do now? Go back to Chicago? Pretend you didn't throw six years away?"
Before I could answer, Claire gasped.
The color drained instantly from her face. Her eyes flew wide, and her body went rigid as she doubled over, clutching the underside of her belly with a strangled cry of agony.
"Claire!" I scrambled to my knees, ignoring the tearing pain in my stitched shoulder, wrapping my arms around her shoulders before she hit the floor. "What is it? What's wrong?"
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"The baby..." she gasped, her fingernails digging through my undershirt into my skin with bruising force. "Daniel... the baby... it's happening. Water... my water just broke."
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