Chapter 5 - The Broken Engagement
The Ashford Grand’s private rooftop helipad was lashed by icy rain as the black Sikorsky helicopter touched down.
Alexander Ashford was waiting on the tarmac, rain plastering his dark hair to his forehead, flanked by twenty armed men in raincoats. When the cabin door slid open and I stepped out, carrying Mateo on my back while Silas assisted my mother, Alexander’s eyes swept over me with an intensity that bordered on panic.
He spotted the blood on my sleeve—not mine, but the mercenary’s.
"Sophia," he said, stepping forward, his voice cracking through the roar of the helicopter blades. "Are you hit?"
"I'm fine," I said, setting Mateo down onto the wet concrete. "My family is safe. That is all that matters."
Alexander turned to his lieutenant, Marcus. "Take Mrs. Reyes and the boy to the penthouse suite. Post four men inside, eight outside. If anyone without level-one clearance steps out of the elevator, put them in the ground."
"Understood, Boss," Marcus said, gently ushering my mother and brother toward the rooftop access doors. Mateo looked back at me, his eyes wide, but I gave him a firm, reassuring nod.
"Go with them, Mat-mat. Ate has work to do."
Once the door closed behind them, Alexander turned back to me. His jaw was set like granite, his eyes burning with an unholy fury.
"Donald Lane signed his own death warrant today," Alexander said, the rain dripping from his chin. "And Victoria knew about the hit. She provided the private security codes to track your address through the hotel's HR database."
"What are you going to do?" I asked, wiping water from my eyes.
"What should have been done months ago," he replied, turning on his heel. "Walk with me."
We descended to the hotel's penthouse boardroom on the forty-fourth floor. Inside, Senator Donald Lane and his daughter Victoria were already waiting.
Senator Lane was an imposing man with manicured silver hair, wearing an expensive pinstriped suit that screamed political power. Victoria sat beside him, nursing a glass of scotch, her eyes rimmed with red from crying. But when she saw me enter the room behind Alexander, her face twisted with vile hatred.
"What is *she* doing here?" Victoria screamed, jumping to her feet. "Alexander, my father has been waiting for two hours! You shut down the terminal shipments at Port Newark—do you have any idea how much money we're losing by the minute?"
"Sit down, Victoria," Senator Lane warned, his voice deep, though his eyes darted nervously toward Alexander. "Alexander, let's be reasonable. The girl is an irrelevance. A domestic dispute. Whatever happened at the engagement party was an embarrassment, yes, but we have a treaty. My political cover protects your logistics. Your muscle protects my investments."
Alexander walked slowly to the head of the long conference table. He did not sit down. He placed both hands flat on the polished glass and leaned forward.
"Six years ago, Donald, a man named Miguel Reyes died in a Queens clinic," Alexander said quietly.
Senator Lane frowned. "What does some dead nobody have to do with—"
"That dead nobody bought my life with his own," Alexander interrupted, his voice dropping into a register that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. "Without him, the Ashford syndicate would have been carved up by the Morettis before you ever got elected to the Senate. Every dollar you have laundered through my ports, every campaign donor you have bought with my cash, exists because Miguel Reyes bled out in an alley."
Victoria let out a bitter, nervous laugh. "Alexander, you can't be serious! You're breaking our engagement over a dead maid's father?"
Alexander reached into his jacket pocket. He pulled out a black velvet box, opened it, and tossed the five-carat diamond engagement ring across the glass. It clattered loudly, stopping inches from Victoria's hand.
"The engagement is over," Alexander said.
"You can't do this!" Senator Lane shouted, slamming his fist on the table. "You cross my family, Alexander, and I will have the federal task force raze this hotel to the ground! I will unleash every agency in Washington on your operations!"
"You won't unleash anything," Alexander said, his gaze shifting to the shadows near the corner of the room.
Silas Vance stepped out of the darkness, holding a thick manila envelope.
"These are the off-the-books ledgers from the Lane family trust," Silas said calmly. "Including the wire transfers you authorized two hours ago to hire a Blackwater-affiliated hit squad to assassinate a civilian family in Astoria. In New York, that is conspiracy to commit murder. In Washington, that is the end of your political career."
Senator Lane's face turned the color of ash. He stared at the envelope, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly.
"Get out of my hotel," Alexander commanded, his voice deadly calm. "Both of you. If either of you ever steps foot on Ashford property again, or if you so much as glance in Sophia Reyes's direction, I will not bother with the authorities. I will bury your entire bloodline in the concrete beneath Pier 42."
Victoria grabbed her father's arm, trembling violently, tears of humiliation spilling down her cheeks. "Daddy... do something!"
"Shut up," Senator Lane whispered, his voice broken. "Just... shut up."
He dragged his daughter toward the double doors, leaving the room in a silence so thick you could hear the rain lashing against the glass.
I stood there, watching the door click shut. The power Alexander wielded was terrifying, a machine of absolute destruction. And yet, when he turned back to face me, the fury in his eyes vanished, replaced by an agonizing vulnerability.
"It's not enough," Alexander said softly, looking at me. "I broke them, but it doesn't repay what you lost."
"Alexander," I said, using his first name for the first time. "My father didn't save you so you could become a tyrant. He saved you because you were a human being bleeding in the dark."
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Alexander stared at me, his slate-gray eyes shimmering with unshed tears. "Then teach me, Sophia. Teach me how to be the man your father died to preserve."
***
