Chapter 7 - The Lake House
The Santoro estate in Lake Forest sat behind twelve-foot iron gates on a bluff overlooking the black, endless water of Lake Michigan.
The house was built of dark gray granite and rough-hewn oak, looking less like a home and more like a fortress that had survived three hundred years of northern storms.
The silver sedan pulled up the gravel driveway at ten thirty.
Abel Ferraro opened the car door for Marin. She stepped out onto the damp gravel, her hand holding her thin coat together against the sharp, cold wind blowing off the water.
Rafe stepped out of the front car, adjusted his coat, and motioned toward the grand stone steps.
"Inside," he said quietly.
The interior of the house was warm, smelling of pine wood smoke, old leather, and beeswax. High stone fireplaces burned in every room, throwing long, amber light across dark oriental rugs and walls lined with ancient copper maps.
In the center of the main drawing room, sitting on a high velvet sofa, was Julianna Whitlock.
She was still wearing her emerald silk gown, but her hair had come loose at the back, and her eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot with rage. Two heavy security guards stood silently by the French doors behind her.
When the heavy front doors opened and Rafe walked in—followed immediately by Marin Hollis in her wrinkled service apron—Julianna leaped to her feet.
"Rafe!" she screamed, her voice cracking with fury. "You have lost your mind! Holding me here like a prisoner?! My father has already called the governor! You will be ruined for this!"
Rafe walked slowly into the center of the room. He did not take off his coat. He stood six feet from her, his hands tucked into his pockets.
"Your father’s lines were disconnected at nine o'clock, Julianna," Rafe said smoothly. "His three construction permits in the third ward were revoked by the city inspector twenty minutes ago. By tomorrow morning, he will be insolvent."
Julianna stopped, her mouth open, her breath coming in quick, ragged gasps. "What... what are you talking about?"
"You broke the rule," Rafe said.
The room dropped into an absolute, suffocating silence.
"What rule?!" she shrieked, pointing a manicured finger at Marin, who stood near the stone doorway with her head lowered. "That... that pathetic little creature dropped a tray! She was sloppy! She needed to be put in her place!"
Rafe took two steps toward Julianna.
He didn't raise a hand. He didn't bend down. He simply stood over her until she was forced to lean back against the sofa to keep his eyes in view.
"There is only one rule in this house," Rafe whispered, every word carved out of cold stone. "No one lays a hand on someone who cannot fight back. My father wrote it in 1988. I wrote it in 2012. And you knew it before you accepted that ring."
He reached down, took her left hand by the fingers, and unclasped the three-carat diamond ring from her finger with one smooth, effortless pull.
Julianna gasped as the metal slid off her skin.
Rafe didn't look at the ring. He tossed it casually into the burning logs of the stone fireplace behind him.
The diamond caught the firelight for one bright second before settling into the red coals.
"Abel," Rafe said.
"Sir?"
"Escort Miss Whitlock to the gate. Her personal belongings will be dropped at her father's townhouse in thirty minutes. If she is seen within five hundred yards of any Santoro property in this state, execute the warrants on her brother's offshore accounts."
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Julianna looked at Rafe's face—at the absolute, dead emptiness in his gray eyes—and realized, with a sudden, cold shock in her stomach, that her life as she had known it had ended twenty minutes ago.
She didn't scream again. She pulled her silk wrap around her shoulders, turned her back, and walked out between the two guards, her heels clicking softly against the dark oak floorboards until the heavy front door closed behind her.
