Chapter 270

[ 1,201 words ]

Julian’s POV

I stood in the foyer, my boots planted on the polished wood floor, my hands still shoved deep inside my trouser pockets. My knuckles were clenched so tight inside that the dry, stiff blood on my palm from yesterday’s shattered glass began to ache again. I didn’t care. The adrenaline was a hot, rushing static in my veins, making my chest rise and fall in heavy, deliberate breaths.

Outside, the sound of the silver Porsche and the four black SUVs reversing down the gravel driveway faded into the distance. Jude Wolfe was gone, but the scent of his expensive, cold British cologne and the sheer, staggering audacity of his claim still felt heavy in the cool air of my house.

I turned slowly, my eyes scanning the high, vaulted arches of the lobby.

Grandma Celeste was standing near the entrance of the formal morning room. She wore a dark, elegant silk shawl draped over her shoulders, her hands resting calmly on the silver handle of her walking cane. She didn’t look surprised. She had the quiet, ancient focus of a matriarch who had spent seventy years watching the men in her family tear themselves apart for the things they claimed to own, and she had undoubtedly heard every single word of the confrontation on the gravel driveway.

She looked at me. She didn’t blink, her pale, sharp eyes cutting through the dim morning light to lock onto mine with a heavy, assessing weight.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I muttered, my voice a quiet, dangerous rasp that carried the raw edge of my anger.

I walked deeper into the foyer, my strides long and heavy.

Grandma Celeste didn’t flinch. She slowly adjusted her grip on her cane, her chin rising as she stepped fully into the light of the high stained-glass windows.

“This thing you are doing with Katia you will regret, Julian,” she said, her voice quiet, steady, and carrying that absolute, unyielding authority that only she possessed in this house. She looked at me, her eyes narrowing slightly. “Why don’t you stop torturing the poor girl and tell her the truth p>

The question hit me like a cold draft. I stopped five feet from where she stood, my chest tightening with a sudden, savage pressure.

I looked at her. I thought about Katia. I thought about the raw, desperate way she had clawed at my back in the dark of her penthouse, her body shaking under mine as I drove myself deep inside her wet core, establishing my physical claim until she was sobbing my name into the pillows. I thought about the legal marriage certificate sitting in my biometric safe, the paper she had signed with her actual, real name without ever realizing she was legally, irreversibly bound to me forever.

I had built a fortress of lies around her to keep her safe, to keep her in my bed, and to keep her from running back into the dark.

“I wanted to,” I said, my voice dropping to a low, territorial rumble that vibrated deep in my chest. I took two steps closer to my grandmother, my shadow completely engulfing her. “But then, Wolfe showed up claiming to be her husband. I want to see what he is hiding p>

Grandma Celeste stared at me. A faint, troubled shadow passed over her elegant face, her fingers tightening slightly against the silver handle of her cane.

“What are you going to do when he starts fabricating things and Katia believes he is actually her husband?” Grandma asked, her voice carrying the sharp, logical warning of a woman who understood exactly how high the stakes were. “She is vulnerable, Julian. She has spent seven years carrying a ring and waiting for a ghost. If this man presents her with a narrative that fits her memory, she will believe him p>

The mere suggestion of Katia believing another man was hers made the blood in my veins turn to pure, boiling acid. My jaw clenched so hard the muscles beneath my skin twitched violently, my fists tightening inside my pockets.

I stepped closer to her, my eyes locking onto hers with a lethal, unblinking focus that left no room for negotiation.

“One thing I know is that ever since I found out she is my wife, we might fight, but I sleep where she sleeps,” I growled, my voice dropping to a low, warning register that rattled in the quiet of the foyer. “And Wolfe… Wolfe will never get to see my wife naked or spend a night with her p>

It was a promise written in the raw, territorial language of a beast. I would tear this city apart, I would burn his entire racing empire to the ground, and I would execute him in front of his own security detail before I let his fingers touch a single inch of Katia’s skin. She was mine. Every sweat-soaked inch of her body, every breathless cry she made in the dark, and every legal document in this country belonged to me.

Grandma Celeste watched me. The sheer, possessive intensity of my vow seemed to register in her eyes, but she didn’t try to talk me down. She knew me. She knew that when a Windsor claimed his territory, there was no force on this earth strong enough to make him back away.

“What did Wolfe want?” Grandma asked quietly, her focus shifting back to the immediate logistics of the threat.

I let out a short, quiet laugh. It was a dry, mocking sound that carried the full, dangerous weight of my intent.

“To take Aiden home according to him,” I said, my voice dropping to a cold, razor-sharp whisper. “But I didn’t let him. He is up to something, Grandma. Why is he not going to Katia first? He wants to claim my son before he claims the mother. He is up to something p>

The logic of it was completely wrong. If Jude Wolfe were playing a high-stakes media game to claim Katia and her company’s telemetry assets, the standard move would have been to corner her in Manhattan. He would have gone to her penthouse, presented his fabricated documents to her, and forced her into compliance before coming to my family mansion.

But he hadn’t done that.

He had landed his private jet, bypassed the city, and driven an entire armed escort straight to my gates to claim a boy he had never seen a picture of. He was trying to secure the heir first. He was trying to put his hands on my blood before I could establish my own defense.

Grandma Celeste stood in silence for three long, heavy seconds, her mind working through the implications. Slowly, she nodded her head, her face pale.

“It’s very strange,” she agreed, her voice dropping to a whisper of genuine concern.

“So Grandma,” I said, my voice carrying a quiet, mocking finality that cut straight through the morning air. I turned my head, looking back toward the heavy oak doors where Jude’s convoy had just departed, my eyes narrowing into slits. “I won’t let him claim what is mine. I have already made sure he knows I am an enemy p>

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