Page 71 of Claimed By the Ruthless King

SALVATORE

I fall apart when I see her standing on the sidewalk, bag in hand, staring into space.

I pull up alongside her, grab her bag and practically shove her into the car before she does something stupid and runs away.

Ophelia has been in a vulnerable place for a while, but tonight, everything has been heightened.

For a while now, she seems to have been searching for herself after losing her mother, clinging onto the first person who felt like home.

I feel like home to a lot of people, but that’s only because I have what most people don’t. Money does indeed make the world go around for a lot of people.

But not for Ophelia.

She isn’t clinging onto me for money, but because I see her as something different.

And she is the most fucking special person I have ever come across. Fuck the New York governor, the politicians, the philanthropists; the billionaire CEOs who live double lives.

None of us are special.

Ophelia on the other hand? She deserves everything. If technology was advanced enough, I would sell my business to reincarnate her mother to make her happy.

I will never truly make her happy, but I can help protect her from the Crows leader.

And if this man is truly her father, he can expect a beating from me. One he won’t survive.

I scan my key card, entering the parking garage. Ophelia still hasn’t said a word to me, still curled up on the passenger seat, staring through the side window.

She sits up as we enter my level in the parking garage, scanning the surroundings.

I swing into a free space and step out of the vehicle, locking up with her bag slung over my shoulder.

“Here,” I offer her my hand, which she accepts after some silent debating.

“I saw the black Toyota again.”

“When?”

“When I got out of the taxi.” Ophelia stares into space, looking like she’s seeing a ghost… or life for what it truly is. “My father has been sending me different warnings.”

“Perhaps,” I say, guiding her out of the parking garage, into the elevator.

“No, seriously. First, he sends me to an investigative journalist who tells me to stay away, now this?”

“And you’re sure all your mother’s belongings are gone?”

“The burglar cleared out all the boxes.”

“Fuck,” I say, grinding my jaw as we walk into the elevator. “What about the drawing?”

“Probably gone too,” says Ophelia. “I was in the middle of a mental breakdown by that point.”

“This new leader is finding all the evidence,” I say, thinking out loud. “Trying to prevent leaks.”

“What about the Queens unit?”

“That will be next. Luckily, David already cleared that out.” I turn and face her in the elevator, our bodies inches from touching. “Look, sweetheart, David looked through the other items left in the unit. There were some journals, along with that photograph of your father.”

“How can we be sure Ben is my father?”