Chapter 20
Emily Windsor's POV
I didn't even see them move. Just muffled grunts, the soft crack of breaking bone, and those living, breathing men were dragged silently into deeper darkness. Then—nothing.
The entire sequence took less than a minute. The garden returned to deathly silence, as if it had all been a nightmare. Only the still-warm corpse at my feet and the lingering smell of blood confirmed it wasn't an illusion.
Luke walked toward me, his dress shoes crunching on fallen leaves. Each step echoed like a drumbeat against my ribs.
I backed away instinctively until my spine hit rough bark. Nowhere left to run.
I stared into those ice-blue eyes, and a terror unlike anything I'd ever known seized my heart.
He'd saved me.
But the way he'd done it was the very thing I feared most.
"Come here." He stopped in front of me, extending his hand. Calm. Commanding. Absolute.
I looked at that elegant hand—all those defined knuckles—and my stomach lurched violently.
I whipped my head away, refusing his touch, refusing his gaze. My voice trembled with barely contained emotion. "Don't touch me!"
Luke's hand froze mid-air.
He watched me in silence. The dim garden lights cast deep shadows in his eye sockets, making his expression unreadable.
"I'm done with this." I braced myself against the tree trunk, forcing myself upright. Every ounce of fear and contradiction I'd been suppressing erupted all at once. "The auction. The killing. Luke, I can't do this! I can't just stand there like you do and pretend it's all normal!"
I turned to face him, my eyes burning as I stared him down, every word torn from my chest. "Our deal is over. I want nothing more to do with you. Let me go."
The moment I said it, I felt utterly drained.
I knew it was futile—like throwing pebbles at a tank—but if staying meant obliterating everything I'd believed in for the past twenty-something years, I'd rather face destruction.
Luke listened without a flicker of emotion.
He slowly lowered his hand and tucked the gun back at his waist with the casual elegance of someone adjusting his cufflinks.
"Let you go?" He laughed softly. In the dead quiet of the night, it sounded arctic. "Emily, what do you think this is? A revolving door you can waltz in and out of?"
He stepped closer, planting both hands on the tree trunk on either side of me, trapping me in his space again.
"You witnessed me kill a Corleone family member tonight." He leaned down, those glacial eyes boring through me with cold clarity. "Do you really think you'd make it out of this estate alive without my protection?"
His words hit like ice water. Reality crashed down on me.
He was right. The moment I'd stepped into his world, there'd been no turning back. Whether I wanted it or not, I bore the mark of the Victor family now.
Despair swallowed me whole. I sagged against the tree, closing my eyes.
Seeing the defeat on my pale face, something in Luke's gaze seemed to thaw.
He fell silent for a long time—so long I thought he'd force me into submission by more brutal means. But then, unexpectedly, he stepped back.
The suffocating pressure vanished. I opened my eyes in confusion.
"Emily." His voice dropped, stripped of its earlier dominance and ice. There was even a hint of something like concession. "I'll admit—tonight was a miscalculation on my part."
He looked at me, a storm of complex emotions swirling in those unfathomable eyes. "I wanted you to see what you're really dealing with. But you're not like them. I shouldn't have handled you the same way."
I stared at him, bewildered.
"At least stay until the trial is over." His gaze held mine, his tone shifting back to that cold, rational businessman. "I need you for the money laundering case. That was our original deal."
He paused, then added, "Until then, I promise—nothing like tonight will happen in front of you again. I'll handle all the mess. You just do what you do best."
He was compromising.
This man—omnipotent, treating human lives like insects—was actually backing down to keep me.
I looked at him, my emotions a tangled mess.
I didn't have a choice.
He was a devil. But he was also the only shelter I had right now.
After a long silence, I found my voice. It came out dry, hoarse. "Fine."
After that night at the estate, Luke and I settled into a strange, fragile balance.
He kept his promise. No more bloodshed in my presence. The Corleone family fallout was handled so cleanly, it was as if it had never happened.
I forced myself to pour every ounce of energy into the Victor family money laundering case.
It wasn't just my job anymore. It was the only shield I had against Luke. As long as I buried myself in case files, I could temporarily forget the blood-soaked garden.
But Luke clearly had no intention of letting me hide.
He invaded my life with deliberate force. He'd show up at my office under various pretenses—sometimes with freshly ground coffee from the city's most exclusive café, sometimes with lunch prepared by a Michelin-starred chef using ingredients flown in that morning.
"Miss Windsor," he'd say, leaning casually against my desk, watching me work with a hint of amusement. "Even the most efficient machine needs fuel, doesn't it?"
I didn't look up, my voice flat. "Mr. Reed, I appreciate the concern, but my fuel is closing this case as quickly as possible."
"Is that so?" He chuckled softly. Without warning, his long fingers reached over and shut my laptop. "But I prefer machines that know when to take a break."
His warm breath grazed the top of my head. My whole body went rigid. My heart skipped a beat.
This sudden closeness—so controlling, so absolute—made it nearly impossible to maintain my composure.
I forced myself to breathe deeply. Before he could cross any more lines, I reopened the laptop and launched into a mechanical recitation of case progress, using the most formal tone I could muster, desperate to re-establish distance between us.
As if we weren't employer and lawyer. Not devil and captive. Just an ordinary couple in an ordinary city, heading home together after working late.
The thought sent a cold shock through my system. I immediately severed that dangerous fantasy, reminding myself over and over: Emily, don't forget who he is.
To escape this suffocating tug-of-war as quickly as possible, I pinned all my hopes on Marco.
That fox-clever CFO, under Luke's tacit approval, began feeding me fragments of critical financial records.