She Was Humiliated and Fired While Pregnant — Then the Most Feared Man in Chicago Arrived and Revealed She Was Carrying His Heir.

PART 6

Damian covered Elena with his body. “Stay down.”

Men shouted outside. Another pane shattered. A figure staggered out from behind a row of palms, revolver shaking in both hands, suit torn, face slick with sweat and rain.

Preston Wexley.

“You ruined me!” he screamed.

Damian rose between him and Elena. Preston aimed at his chest.

“Adrian promised he’d restore everything if I brought him the woman and the ledger.”

“Adrian lied to you.”

“Shut up!”

“He used you as a distraction. Nothing more.”

Preston’s hands trembled. “I had a company. A name.”

“You had employees you abused and investors you robbed.”

“You destroyed my life over her.”

“No,” Elena called from behind Damian. “You destroyed your own life the moment you decided no one beneath you mattered.”

Preston swung the gun toward her.

Damian fired once. The bullet struck Preston’s shoulder, spinning him to the floor, the revolver skidding away across the tile.

Damian crossed the room and raised his weapon toward Preston’s head. Preston whimpered.

“Damian,” Elena said.

He didn’t lower it.

“He aimed the gun at you.”

“The threat is over.”

“He’ll try again.”

“Then let the courts decide what happens to him.”

His finger stayed near the trigger, the old instincts fighting to win — violence had protected him since he was a child, and mercy had always looked, to him, like an open invitation for betrayal.

“If you kill him,” Elena said quietly, “you prove that everything you’ve promised was just words.”

Damian looked down at Preston a long moment. Then he switched the safety on.

“Call an ambulance,” he ordered. “And the police.”

Preston laughed weakly. “You think this makes you decent?”

“No,” Damian said. “It makes me finished with becoming worse.”

As paramedics carried him out, Preston grabbed an officer’s sleeve. “You’re watching the wrong house,” he rasped. “Salvatore has people inside the estate.”

Damian turned toward Elena just as his phone rang.

Silas’s voice came through the speaker, flat with alarm. “Boss. The estate just lost power.”