Chapter 4 CLOSE ENOUGH TO KILL

Dominic Moreau didn't trust coincidences.

By mid-morning, the estate was on lockdown, the once-bustling halls now heavy with the weight of unseen threats.

Behind the closed doors of his private meeting room, Dominic stood at the head of a long oak table, his expression carved from stone.

The USB device - found suspiciously close to his private office - sat between them like a live grenade.

An open threat to his rule. The first in years.

Someone had breached his defenses.

Someone wanted him to bleed.

And Dominic had a sinking feeling he already knew where to start looking.

"Find her," he said coldly, his fingers steepled in front of him, voice slicing through the tense silence. "I want everything. Name, background, connections. I want to know what she eats for breakfast, what side of the bed she sleeps on. No detail is too small."

The men nodded sharply, the atmosphere electric with the promise of action.

They scattered like crows moments later, black suits dissolving into the shadows of the estate.

Only Angelo lingered behind, tension radiating off him like heat. He closed the door with a soft click and turned to Dominic, a frown tugging at his mouth.

"You think it's her?" Angelo asked quietly. "The woman from the gala?"

Dominic's jaw tightened, a muscle feathering along his cheek.

"I don't believe in accidents," he said, his voice hard with certainty.

Angelo shifted uneasily. "Maybe... it's nothing. Maybe she's just-"

"Nobody is just anything," Dominic snapped, slicing through his cousin's doubt. His voice dropped to a lethal whisper.

"Especially not someone who moves like a whisper and smiles like a secret."

His instincts - the very ones that had kept him alive all these years - were screaming now.

He needed facts, not gut feelings. Hard evidence. A name to pin the growing unease to.

Until then, Dominic would keep his cards close, his dagger closer.

He wouldn't make the mistake of underestimating her.

Not again.

---

Catalina watched from the edge of the garden terrace, her hands folded neatly around a delicate porcelain cup, the very picture of idle grace.

The morning sun glinted off the stone balustrade, painting long, lazy shadows across the sprawling estate gardens. It was peaceful here - deceptively so.

She wore a white dress today - simple, elegant, disarming - the color of innocence and surrender. A clever lie stitched into silk.

Inside her chest, beneath the soft facade, her heart beat with the cold precision of a tactician at war.

The Moreaus had built their empire on centuries of blood and betrayal.

She would tear it apart.

Brick by crumbling brick.

Her network had already begun its quiet work behind the scenes, slipping poison into conversations, bending weaker wills with whispered promises and carefully crafted lies.

Men loyal for decades would soon be questioning orders, suspecting each other.

It wouldn't take long.

Catalina sipped her coffee, savoring the bitterness.

Dominic appeared then, stepping out onto the terrace like a thundercloud barely contained in human form.

His dark suit caught the light, a stark contrast to the violent storm brewing in his eyes.

Their gazes collided across the space - a silent clash of wills, sharp enough to draw blood.

Catalina tilted her head, letting her lips curve into a polite, unreadable smile.

A siren call.

Dominic approached, each step a tightly controlled act of violence restrained only by necessity.

"You seem very comfortable here," he said, voice low and dangerous, like a predator testing the strength of a cage.

Catalina arched a delicate brow, the picture of amused indifference. "Should I not be?"

"Strangers usually aren't," Dominic replied, studying her the way a wolf studies a rival - curious, cautious, deadly.

A small, humorless laugh escaped her lips. "I find that familiarity is often a trap."

For the briefest moment, something flickered in his eyes - surprise, or maybe recognition. Then it was gone, shuttered behind the iron walls of his self-control.

Dominic took another slow step forward, the space between them shrinking to something tense, electric.

He studied her - the subtle way she leaned against the stone railing, relaxed yet ready. Every movement precise. Every smile calculated.

She was playing a game.

He just didn't know the rules yet.

"Who are you?" he asked finally, his voice stripped of all the polite pretense they'd danced with before.

Catalina met his stare unflinchingly.

"Someone who knows how empires fall," she said, her voice soft but carrying the weight of an executioner's blade.

A loaded silence stretched between them, thick enough to choke on.

Dominic felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck.

There was something about the way she said it - not a warning.

A promise.

A declaration.

Before he could press further, Angelo's voice cut through the charged air from the doorway.

"Dom, we need you."

Dominic didn't move immediately, torn between duty and the gnawing instinct that the real threat was standing right in front of him.

"You'll excuse me," he said at last, voice clipped, eyes never leaving hers.

Catalina inclined her head gracefully, her smile slow and almost pitying. "Of course. Ruling empires is a busy business."

He turned sharply, the moment snapping like a thread pulled too tight.

Catalina watched him walk away, her expression serene as the seeds she had planted earlier began to take root.

Dominic Moreau might have ruled this world once.

But he didn't know the game had changed.

He didn't know the queen he thought dead had come back - not for mercy.

Not for forgiveness.

Catalina had returned for conquest.

And nothing - not love, not loyalty, not even old memories - would stop her from taking it all.