Chapter 5 - The Engraved Initials
Gideon’s jaw clenched so tightly the muscles fluttered visibly under his skin.
He took a slow, deliberate step forward, closing the distance between himself and the muddy, trembling woman. He reached out with a large, powerful hand. His fingers, usually steady enough to execute flawless violence, were visibly shaking.
He took the antique silver hairpin from Harper’s palm.
The cold metal felt like a violent shock to his system. He didn't need to inspect it closely, but he did anyway. With slow, agonizing precision, Gideon turned the silver wolf over under the bright glow of the chandeliers.
There, stamped into the tarnished back of the antique silver, were three tiny, perfectly engraved initials: J.R.H.
Josephine Rose Hayes.
The air violently left Gideon’s lungs. His dark eyes widened, shattering his impenetrable, cold mafia facade completely.
"Where did you get that?" Gideon whispered, his voice breathless, broken, and filled with a desperate, terrifying vulnerability that no one in the city had ever heard before.
Twenty years ago, when Gideon was just a teenager building his empire in the streets, Jackson Miller had been the family's trusted lawyer. Jackson had stood in front of Gideon and delivered the devastating news that his mother had died in a tragic fire at her private estate. Gideon had buried an empty casket. He had spent two decades mourning a woman he loved more than life itself.
May you like
And now, the very hairpin he had personally gifted his mother for her birthday twenty-one years ago was resting in the palm of his hand, completely unburned.
👉 Gideon finally held the proof of a twenty-year lie, and Jackson’s desperate panic was about to expose his ultimate betrayal.
