Chapter 3 - Shadows in the Marble Palace
“She is Lily’s guest, Mother,” Damon said calmly, though the subtle shift in his posture told me he was bracing for a fight.
The woman reached the bottom of the stairs, stopping three feet away from us. This was Eleanor Cross, the matriarch of the Cross syndicate, a woman whose name carried as much terror in high-society circles as Damon’s did in the streets. Beside her was Julian Cross, Damon’s younger brother—a man whose shifting, restless eyes smelled of pure envy.
Eleanor sneered at me. “A waitress? You brought a dining room servant into the Cross manor in the middle of the night? Have you lost your mind, Damon? The board is meeting tomorrow about the shipping routes, and you’re parading staff through the front hall!”
“She spoke, Mother,” Damon said quietly.
The entire hall fell into a dead, suffocating quiet.
Julian, who had been lazily spinning a gold signet ring on his pinky finger, froze. “What did you say?”
“Lily spoken,” Damon repeated, his voice sharp as a blade. “She spoke to Miss Brooks. In front of a dozen witnesses at the Sterling Room.”
Eleanor’s face drained of color. For a second, a flicker of something terrible passed through her cold eyes—not joy, not relief, but a sudden, sharp panic that was buried as quickly as it appeared.
“That’s... impossible,” Eleanor stammered, her voice tightening. “The doctors said the trauma of her birth—the brain hypoxia—was absolute. She is non-verbal.”
“She spoke,” Damon reiterated, stepping between Eleanor and me, his broad back blocking her cold gaze. “She pointed at Miss Brooks and called her Mama.”
Julian let out a sharp, mocking laugh. “Mama? She called a random, broke waitress Mama? Damon, the kid is two years old. She probably just mispronounced water or wanted a crust of bread. You’re letting your grief turn you into a fool.”
Lily stirred in my arms at the loud noise. She opened her gray eyes, blinked against the bright lights, and immediately shrank back into my neck, whimpering softly.
“She didn't mispronounce anything,” I said loudly, surprising myself with the strength in my own voice. I glared at Julian. “She knew exactly what she was saying. And if you keep shouting like that, you’re going to frighten her again.”
Julian’s eyes flashed with anger. “How dare you speak to me—”
“Enough!” Damon’s voice echoed through the marble foyer like a thunderclap.
Julian snapped his mouth shut, though his jaw twitched with fury.
“Arthur,” Damon commanded without looking back. “Show Miss Brooks to the west suite. Ensure she has whatever she needs. If anyone—anyone—bothers her tonight, they answer directly to me.”
Eleanor stood frozen as Arthur bowed and motioned for me to follow him up the grand staircase. As I carried Lily up the stairs, I felt three pairs of eyes burning into my back: Damon’s intense, protective glare; Julian’s bitter hatred; and Eleanor’s cold, calculating panic.
The west suite was larger than my entire apartment in Logan Square. It featured a king-sized bed wrapped in Egyptian cotton sheets, a roaring marble fireplace, and a connecting door that led directly into a pale pink, cloud-themed nursery.
I gently laid Lily down in her crib. The moment her head hit the pillow, her eyes flickered open, filled with sudden panic.
“Shh,” I whispered, dropping to my knees beside the crib and taking her tiny hand in mine. “I’m right here, sweet girl. I’m not going anywhere.”
Her tiny fingers closed around my thumb with incredible strength. I began to hum a quiet, old lullaby my grandmother used to sing to me when the winters in Chicago were too cold for our radiator—a soft, repetitive melody about warm sun and gentle rain.
Slowly, her breathing stabilized. Her eyelids grew heavy, and she drifted back to sleep, holding my thumb like a lifeline.
I sat on the cold floor beside her crib for an hour, afraid to move and break the hold.
The connecting door to the nursery opened silently.
Damon stepped into the dim room. He had taken off his jacket and tie; his white dress shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, rolling up his sleeves to reveal dark, intricate tattoos creeping up his forearms—scars, Latin phrases, and old family crests.
He looked down at me sitting on the rug, then down at his sleeping daughter holding my thumb.
“You have a natural way with her,” he said softly, leaning against the doorframe.
“I’ve studied child development for three years, Mr. Cross,” I replied quietly. “Traumatized children don't respond to authority. They respond to safety. They need to know the person holding them isn't going to disappear when things get loud.”
Damon stared at me, his storm-gray eyes unreadable. “Her mother... Helena... she never held her like that.”
I blinked. “What?”
Damon walked into the room, his footsteps completely silent on the heavy rug. He stood beside the crib, looking down at Lily.
“Helena hated the pregnancy,” Damon confessed, his voice dropping into a dark, hollow place. “She was the daughter of the Moretti family—an arranged marriage to seal a peace treaty between our families five years ago. She didn't want a child. When Lily was born, Helena refused to hold her. Four months later, Helena died of an alleged heart arrhythmia in Switzerland.”
I swallowed hard, feeling a cold chill run through me. “An alleged heart arrhythmia?”
Damon’s jaw tightened. “In my world, Miss Brooks, people rarely die of natural causes at twenty-six. But before I could investigate, Helena’s personal estate was sealed by my mother and the Moretti family. They claimed it was to protect the family’s privacy.”
May you like
He looked down at me, his eyes burning with an intense, desperate light.
“Lily hasn't spoken a word since the day Helena died,” Damon whispered. “Tonight was the first time she broke that silence. She didn't call you Mama because she thinks you are Helena. She called you Mama because she knows you aren't.”
