Chapter 4 - The Betrayal Within
For three weeks, Blackwood House experienced an uneasy, fragile peace.
Every evening at 8:00 PM, June would enter the nursery, turn off the bright overhead chandeliers, and sit on the floor between Avery and Emma’s beds. She sang the old melody softly until both girls fell into deep, dreamless sleep.
For the first time in three years, the twins stopped screaming. Their pale cheeks regained their healthy pink color, their bright laughter echoed through the gardens during the day, and they refused to eat breakfast unless "June-bug" was sitting beside them.
Ethan watched the transformation from a distance.
He found himself spending less time in his city office and more time in the estate library, watching through the French doors as June ran through the autumn leaves with his daughters. She was no longer wearing the oversized uniform; Mrs. Callahan had quietly purchased a warm woolen wardrobe for her, though June still wore her tape-mended shoes out of some stubborn attachment to her past.
One late evening, as rain slicked the windows of the study, Ethan called June into his office.
"Your brother’s debts have been cleared," Ethan said, sliding a receipt across the desk. "Mickey Nails will not be bothering him again. I have also secured a private apartment for him in Queens and paid his rent for two years."
June looked at the paper, tears brimming in her eyes. "Mr. Blackwood... I don't know how to thank you."
"You don't need to thank me," Ethan said, standing up and walking over to her. He looked down at her face, his gaze lingering on her soft lips and the faint dimple in her chin. "You gave my daughters their life back. There is no monetary value I can place on that."
He reached out, his long fingers gently tucking a stray lock of brown hair behind her ear. June’s breath hitched at the warmth of his touch, a sudden, powerful electricity surging between them in the dim quiet of the library.
"Ethan..." she whispered, using his first name for the first time.
Before he could answer, the mansion’s alarm system began to blare—a deafening, rhythmic horn that echoed through every corridor.
Red emergency lights flashed across the mahogany walls.
The heavy steel security shutters slammed down over the library windows with a violent crash.
Ethan’s hand instantly went to his holster. He pulled June behind him just as the library door was kicked open.
It wasn't Julian Rossi’s men who stepped through the door.
It was Victor—Ethan’s chief of security, a man who had worked for the Blackwood family for fifteen years. Behind Victor stood four armed guards, their weapons raised directly at Ethan’s heart.
"Victor?" Ethan’s voice was lethal, quiet, and entirely lacking in surprise. "I paid you four million dollars last year."
"Julian offered ten," Victor said coldly, holding a heavy electronic detonator in his left hand. "And he offered me total control of the docks once you're out of the picture."
June gasped, backing against the walnut desk.
"Where are my daughters?" Ethan demanded, his silver eyes flashing with murderous intent.
"They are already in the back of an armored van heading for the harbor," Victor sneered. "Julian wants his grand-nieces. He plans to raise them as Rossi heirs once he puts a bullet through your head."
Victor raised his silenced pistol, taking aim at Ethan’s forehead.
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In that split second, June didn't think about her safety, her poverty, or her fear. She saw the man who had protected her brother, the man whose cold heart she had watched melt over his children, and the two little girls who called her name in the dark.
June reached out, grabbed the heavy iron desk lamp beside her, and slammed it with all her strength against the side of Victor’s head.
