Chapter 2 - The Rules of the Kane Family
Roman did not run toward me.
That would have been less frightening.
He stepped out of the sedan slowly, rain striking his black coat and sliding over his face. His expression remained controlled as his eyes moved from my bare feet to my soaked dress, then to the uneven remains of my hair.
His gaze stopped there.
Something inside him changed.
I had seen Roman furious before. His anger usually became quieter, colder, more deliberate.
This was different.
This was the moment before a building collapsed.
“Bianca.”
My knees weakened when he said my name.
He crossed the distance and removed his coat, wrapping it around my shoulders. His hands were steady, but the pulse in his neck hammered beneath his skin.
“Are you hurt?”
“I don’t know.”
“The baby?”
“She’s moving.”
He pressed one hand gently over my stomach. Our daughter kicked beneath his palm.
Roman closed his eyes for half a second.
When he opened them, the man I loved returned—but only for me.
“You’re freezing.”
He lifted me before I could object.
I clung to his shoulders as he carried me toward the mansion. Behind him, his driver, Tomas, spoke urgently into a phone, calling Roman’s private physician and security team.
The front doors remained closed.
Roman stopped at the bottom step.
“Open them,” he said.
No one responded.
He looked toward the security camera above the entrance.
“Open the doors.”
The command was quiet.
The doors opened immediately.
Vivienne stood beneath the chandelier wearing a black evening gown. Staff and guards lined the walls. No one looked directly at us.
Roman carried me across the threshold.
His mother’s eyes settled on his coat around my shoulders.
“She became hysterical,” Vivienne said. “We tried to protect the child.”
Roman continued walking.
“Roman, listen to me.”
He did not turn.
“She attacked me. She broke into my private rooms. She threatened the staff.”
Roman stopped near the staircase.
He looked at me.
“Did you attack her?”
“She slapped me. I warned her not to do it again.”
“That is not an answer,” Vivienne snapped.
Roman’s eyes remained on mine.
“Did you touch my mother?”
“No.”
He nodded once.
Then he looked at the guards.
“Who held my wife down?”
No one spoke.
“I asked a question.”
The head of security, Grant Mercer, stepped forward. He was a broad-shouldered former Marine who had worked for the Kane family for twelve years.
“Mr. Kane—”
“Who held her down?”
Mercer swallowed.
“Doyle and Reeves.”
Two guards near the wall turned pale.
Roman looked at them.
“Leave your weapons on the floor.”
“Sir, we were following—”
“Now.”
Both men removed their sidearms.
Roman turned to Mercer.
“Detain them in the west security room. No phones. No outside contact.”
Vivienne laughed sharply.
“You cannot punish men for obeying the head of this household.”
Roman looked at her for the first time.
“You are not the head of my household.”
The words landed harder than a shout.
Vivienne’s face tightened.
“This estate belonged to your father.”
“It belongs to Kane Holdings.”
“Which belongs to this family.”
“Which I control.”
“You would humiliate me in front of servants for that woman?”
Roman adjusted his hold on me.
“That woman is my wife.”
“I am your mother.”
“And tonight you became a threat.”
Silence filled the entrance hall.
Roman carried me upstairs to our bedroom and locked the door. Tomas arrived moments later with blankets. Dr. Miriam Patel entered behind him, still wearing a raincoat over hospital scrubs.
Roman placed me gently on the bed.
Dr. Patel examined my pulse, blood pressure, temperature, and the baby’s heartbeat. The room remained silent except for the rhythmic sound of our daughter’s heart.
Strong.
Fast.
Alive.
“You’re dangerously cold, but the baby appears stable,” Dr. Patel said. “I want you monitored overnight. No stress, no confrontation, no standing for long periods.”
Roman looked at the uneven cuts across my scalp.
“And this?”
“Superficial injuries. Some abrasions. No deep cuts.”
He stared at my head as though he could reverse what had happened by force.
Dr. Patel touched my shoulder.
“Bianca, I need to ask privately whether there was any physical trauma to your abdomen.”
Roman immediately stepped back.
“I’ll leave.”
I caught his hand.
“No.”
He stayed.
“No one hit my stomach,” I said. “They held my arms. I fought. I didn’t fall.”
Dr. Patel checked me again, then arranged for a portable monitor. Before leaving, she told Roman I needed warmth and rest.
The moment the door closed, I began shaking.
Not from cold.
Roman sat beside me.
“I should have been here.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I knew she resented you.”
“You didn’t know she was capable of this.”
“I should have.”
His voice cracked on the final word.
Roman almost never allowed guilt to show. He treated emotion like confidential information.
I placed my hand over his.
“She planned it while you were unreachable. She took my phone.”
“I received one message.”
“I sent it before she walked in.”
He looked toward the door.
“What exactly happened?”
I told him everything.
The missing laptop.
The blocked vehicles.
The false security lockdown.
The accusations.
The slap.
The scissors.
Roman did not interrupt.
When I finished, he stood and walked to the window.
Rain blurred the dark gardens beyond the glass.
“I need you to promise me something,” he said.
“What?”
“Do not leave this room without Tomas, Miriam, or me.”
“I won’t be imprisoned again.”
He turned.
“That is not what I’m asking.”
“It sounds similar.”
Pain crossed his face.
“You’re right.”
He came back and crouched in front of me.
“The estate security system may be compromised. My mother had assistance. I need a few hours to identify who is loyal to her and who is loyal to me.”
“Those are the only choices?”
“Tonight, yes.”
I studied him.
“What happened in Geneva?”
Roman hesitated.
“A former Kane Capital executive gave federal investigators documents suggesting I moved illegal money through offshore accounts.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Could someone make it look like you did?”
“Yes.”
“Your mother?”
His silence answered.
I felt our daughter move again.
“Why?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“You always know.”
“Not this time.”
That admission frightened me.
Roman explained that his father, Augustus Kane, had founded Kane Capital forty years earlier. After Augustus died, ownership passed through a complicated trust. Vivienne retained influence but no direct control. Roman became chief executive at twenty-nine and gradually removed old associates connected to bribery, blackmail, and political favors.
“I thought she disliked my reforms,” he said. “I didn’t realize she was building against me.”
“What does that have to do with our child?”
“The trust.”
Roman stood and opened a concealed safe behind a painting. He removed a leather folder filled with legal documents.
“My father created a succession clause. If I die without a child, a controlling portion of Kane Holdings returns to a family board chaired by my mother.”
“And if you have a child?”
“My ownership transfers into a protected line. Our daughter becomes the future beneficiary.”
The room felt colder.
“So my pregnancy removes her last chance to regain control.”
“Yes.”
“Why would she hurt me if she needs the baby?”
Roman looked at the floor.
“She may not need you.”
My hands tightened around the blanket.
He saw the fear on my face and immediately sat beside me.
“No one is taking our child.”
“She already tried to make me look unstable.”
“I know.”
“She said you would believe I attacked her.”
“I don’t.”
“She sounded certain.”
Roman looked toward the monitoring device beside the bed.
“Because she planned evidence.”
Within an hour, Roman transformed the mansion into a controlled investigation.
His own security team arrived from Manhattan. Every employee surrendered phones and electronic devices. Exterior gates locked. Camera footage was duplicated before anyone could erase it.
From the bedroom, I heard footsteps moving through hallways that had been silent for days.
At one in the morning, Tomas brought soup and dry clothes.
“Mr. Kane asked me to stay outside the door,” he said.
“You’ve worked for him a long time.”
“Fourteen years.”
“Did you know what his mother was doing?”
His expression hardened.
“No. If I had known, you would never have been left outside.”
I believed him.
Tomas was one of the few people who spoke to Roman without fear. He had driven Roman since Roman was nineteen and had once told me, “Your husband was born into a family that mistakes obedience for love.”
At two thirty, Roman returned carrying my phone and laptop.
“The phone was wiped,” he said. “The laptop was not.”
“Why?”
“They tried. You enabled an encrypted backup.”
“I run restaurants. I don’t trust anything that cannot survive a spilled bottle of wine.”
For the first time that night, he almost smiled.
Then he opened the laptop.
“There’s a recording.”
The mansion’s internal system automatically stored audio from several security zones. Vivienne believed she had erased the footage from her sitting room, but a maintenance backup remained on my computer because I had connected to the household network days earlier to review nursery plans.
Roman pressed play.
Vivienne’s voice filled the room.
Once Roman sees her unstable and disfigured, he will understand the marriage was a mistake.
Another voice replied.
And if he doesn’t?
I recognized Adrian Kane, Roman’s cousin.
Vivienne answered calmly.
Then the federal case will remove him, and the child will be raised under family supervision.
Roman stopped the recording.
His face revealed nothing.
“Adrian?” I whispered.
“He oversees compliance.”
“He could create the false transfers.”
“Yes.”
“He toasted us at our wedding.”
“Yes.”
A knock sounded at the door.
Mercer entered with two security officers.
“We found something,” he said.
He placed a small medical vial inside a plastic evidence bag.
It had been hidden in the cabinet where the kitchen staff prepared my nightly tea.
Dr. Patel examined the label.
“This is clonazepam,” she said. “A sedative.”
“I haven’t taken that.”
“No,” she replied. “But traces in your blood could be used to claim you were abusing medication during pregnancy.”
Roman’s eyes turned black with fury.
“They wanted to drug me,” I said.
“Not only drug you,” Dr. Patel replied. “At sufficient levels, you could become disoriented, fall, or appear incapable of caring for yourself.”
Roman walked out of the room without speaking.
I tried to stand.
Dr. Patel stopped me.
“You need rest.”
“My husband is about to confront the woman who did this.”
“And your daughter needs her mother to remain stable.”
I hated that she was right.
Minutes passed.
Then a deep crash echoed from downstairs.
Not a gunshot.
Furniture.
A man shouted.
Another door slammed.
The lights flickered.
Mercer touched his earpiece.
His expression changed.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Adrian is gone.”
Roman returned moments later.
His knuckles were bleeding.
“Did you hit someone?”
“The man who disabled the west gate.”
“Adrian escaped?”
“He left before we arrived. My mother delayed me long enough for him to reach the service road.”
“What now?”
Roman looked at me.
“Now we stop reacting.”
He sat beside me and opened the leather folder again.
Inside were trust agreements, corporate records, and photographs of men I did not recognize.
“My mother believes this family belongs to her,” he said. “Adrian believes he can inherit what I built. They think you are my weakness.”
“Aren’t I?”
Roman touched my face carefully, avoiding the cuts near my scalp.
“No.”
His eyes lowered to my stomach.
“You are the reason I have something worth saving.”
A vibration sounded from his phone.
One new message.
No number.
Only a photograph.
It showed Adrian standing beside my mother outside the Queens laundry where she still worked three days each week.
May you like
Beneath the image was a sentence.
Bring us the original trust documents, or Bianca loses more than her hair.
