Chapter 5 - THE RETREAT TO THE CITADEL
We left the Cole mansion in silence.
As I stepped through the grand front entrance, I looked back one last time. The fifty high-society guests were scrambling out the terrace doors like rats fleeing a sinking ship, tripping over their designer gowns and abandoning the Coles in the middle of their ruined ballroom.
Adrian was still on his knees, weeping quietly into his hands while his mother screamed hysterically at the empty air.
Outside, a fleet of six black armored Maybachs sat idling in the crisp night air.
Matteo opened the rear door of the center vehicle, holding a soft cashmere blanket. "In you go, little bird," he said gently, his rough face softening with a tenderness he showed to no one else on earth.
I climbed into the plush leather interior. Dominic sat beside me, while Luca took the front passenger seat. The heavy armored doors closed with a solid, airtight THUNK, cutting off all sound from the outside world.
Within seconds, the convoy turned down the long driveway, leaving the glowing lights of the Cole estate behind in the fog.
"Doc Mercer is waiting at the estate," Luca said, checking his watch as the car accelerated onto the highway. "He’s brought specialized burn burn creams and pain blockers. No hospitals, no media."
"Good," Dominic said. He reached over, taking my hand in his massive palm. His fingers were still cold from the autumn night air, but his grip was solid, unshakeable. "Are you in pain, Elena?"
"It burns," I admitted softly, leaning my head back against the leather headrest. "But I can bear it."
"You shouldn't have had to bear it for four years," Dominic whispered, a rare flicker of guilt crossing his steel eyes. "We should have stepped in sooner. We should have looked deeper into how he was treating you."
"I asked you not to," I reminded him quietly. "I wanted to build a normal life, Dom. I wanted to prove I could exist without the family’s shadow."
"A tree can't survive without its roots, Elena," Luca said from the front seat, turning his head slightly. "And the Coles were termites."
The convoy drove for twenty minutes, bypassing the bright neon lights of the city center and heading north toward the coastal bluffs.
We turned onto a private, unlit road lined with towering oak trees. At the end of the road stood the Moretti Estate—a massive, century-old stone fortress built by my grandfather, surrounded by twenty-foot security walls, high-definition cameras, and private guards patroling the grounds.
In the city, people called it the "Citadel."
As the iron gates opened to let our convoy pass, I felt the heavy, suffocating weight that had rested on my chest for four years finally begin to lift.
I was no longer the quiet, meek wife of Adrian Cole. I was home.
The car stopped in front of the grand stone steps. The front doors flew open, and Doc Mercer—our family’s private physician for thirty years—hurried down the stairs carrying a medical bag, followed by two elderly housekeepers who had known me since I was a child.
"Get her upstairs to the master suite," Doc Mercer ordered quickly, looking at my pale face and the blood soaking through my coat.
Dominic helped me out of the car, carrying me up the stone steps into the warm, oak-paneled foyer of the Citadel.
As Doc Mercer guided me toward the private medical wing, Gabriel’s phone chimed in the hallway.
He answered it, listened for three seconds, and looked up at Dominic with a cold, ruthless smile.
"Richard Cole just tried to transfer twenty million dollars out of his personal offshore account in Zurich," Gabriel announced.
Dominic stopped at the foot of the stairs, looking up at me. "And?"
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"The bank flagged the account for federal tax compliance," Gabriel chuckled. "The transfer failed. The Coles are officially broke."
Dominic nodded once, his eyes fixed on me. "That was just the first lash, Gabriel. We have twenty-nine more to go."
