Chapter 5
Dominic never asked whether she had found anything.
He already knew.
Norah pushed the laptop toward his chest.
He caught it.
“They’re not taking your money.”
Her voice was tight.
“They’re using your trucks.”
Dominic opened the screen.
Norah pointed.
“Atlas Logistics reports textile containers at 10 tons.”
She moved through the highlighted rows.
“But the truck fuel consumption matches 20-ton loads.”
Dominic stared.
“How long?”
“18 months.”
Norah continued rapidly.
“Exactly every other Tuesday.”
She showed him the hidden routes.
“The payment routing is disguised as a Cayman Islands reserve fund under your control.”
Norah looked up.
“If the DEA or FBI opens 1 of those containers, every document points to your personal accounts.”
Her voice lowered.
“Someone is building a cage around you, Dominic.”
He closed the laptop.
Very softly.
The fury remained entirely inside him.
A black absence of emotion.
“Benson.”
Dominic’s voice was low.
“He is the only person with sufficient administrative clearance to change the manifest weights before aggregation.”
“Yes.”
Norah did not soften it.
Dominic placed the laptop on a wrought-iron table.
Then he faced her.
The rage in his eyes did not point toward Norah.
When he looked at her, the cold fractured.
Possession appeared beneath it.
He stepped close.
Norah held her ground.
“You found in 6 hours what my organization missed for 18 months.”
“I told you.”
Her throat was suddenly dry.
“I do the math.”
“Stop hiding behind the numbers.”
Dominic took her waist in both hands.
His thumbs pressed into the wool sweater.
He pulled her forward.
Only an inch.
It destroyed the formal distance between them.
Norah gasped.
Her hands went instinctively to his chest.
His heartbeat struck heavily beneath the cotton shirt.
No 1 had ever held her this way.
No 1 had ever looked at her as though she were the only thing in the room.
“You did not just protect my money.”
Dominic leaned closer.
His mouth stopped near hers.
“You protected me.”
“You hired me.”
Norah’s body betrayed the weakness of the argument.
She leaned toward his warmth.
Dominic’s thumbs moved along her waist.
“I claimed you.”
His voice darkened.
“And you just proved why.”
He did not kiss her.
He allowed the tension to remain.
He wanted her conscious of it.
Then he released her.
Norah shivered in the sudden space.
“Gideon.”
“Sir.”
“Find Benson.”
Dominic never looked away from Norah.
“Take him to the warehouse.”
His voice returned to lethal calm.
“He has an appointment with Frank.”
Then he added, “Tell Victor to bring lunch to the war room. Miss Miller and I have more work.”
Hours later, the war room glowed blue in darkness.
It was past midnight.
Victor’s lunch sat forgotten.
Half a turkey sandwich had gone dry and curled at the edges.
Norah had uncovered the rest.
Benson had not only manipulated shipment weights.
He had sold internal security schedules to the Callahan syndicate operating through the Boston docks.
The Cayman shell accounts had been designed as bait.
If federal investigators discovered the smuggling, evidence would identify Dominic.
It was a hostile takeover disguised as clerical error.
Norah rubbed her eyes.
She understood where Benson was.
The warehouse.
She understood what her work had done.
In her previous life, discrepancies produced HR meetings.
Audits.
Termination packages.
Here, a pivot table could lead to a locked room and pliers.
She should have been terrified.
She should have demanded a car and called police.
Instead, calm settled over her.
For 28 years, Norah followed the rules.
She paid taxes.
Sacrificed her youth.
Cared for a mother who eventually looked directly at her without recognition.
What had obedience given her?
A life so empty that it barely registered.
Dominic Gallow was a monster.
But he was a monster who had looked at Norah and decided she mattered.
He placed access to his empire into her hands and trusted her to use it.
Norah had not hesitated.
The steel door opened.
Dominic stood there.
No jacket.
No tie.
His sleeves remained rolled.
But his white shirt was no longer clean.
A spray of dark blood marked the left collar.
His knuckles were split open.
He no longer resembled an executive.
He resembled the violence behind the Cobalt Lounge.
Dominic entered.
He looked tired.
Not merely physically.
The predatory tension in his posture had loosened under some invisible weight.
He stopped near Norah.
His attention went to her rather than the monitors.
“Is it finished?” Norah asked.
“Benson talked.”
Dominic’s voice was rough.
“The Callahans had his daughter.”
He looked toward his injured hands.
“He sold my fleet access to protect her.”
“What did you do to him?”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“I gave him a choice.”
He raised his eyes.
“A bullet, or a 1-way ticket to a cabin in the Yukon with no future contact with his family.”
Norah remained still.
“He chose the cabin.”
A pause.
“The blood is from the Callahan men sent to make sure he never talked.”
Norah exhaled.
She had not known how much Benson’s survival mattered to her.
It did.
Dominic was not without limits.
There was a code inside the brutality.
“I found the Callahan routing.”
Norah turned toward the monitors.
“They use a maritime insurance company as their primary front.”
She looked back at him.
“I can freeze the assets by morning.”
Her voice strengthened.
“I can bankrupt them before they know you discovered anything.”
Dominic looked toward the data.
Then at Norah.
Heat slowly replaced exhaustion.
He walked closer.
“You didn’t leave.”
“Where would I go?”
“You could have asked Victor for a car.”
Dominic stopped directly in front of her.
“You could have packed your canvas bag and walked through the front gates.”
He held her gaze.
“I told Gideon not to stop you.”
“Why?”
“Because a cage does not help me.”
His knees touched hers.
“I don’t want a captive.”
Dominic’s voice lowered.
“I want a partner.”
He touched her jaw with injured fingers.
Despite the split skin, the movement was gentle.
Norah leaned into it.
“You saw me tonight.”
Dominic’s thumb moved along her lower lip.
“You know what I do in the dark.”
His eyes remained fixed on hers.
“And you’re still here writing algorithms to destroy my enemies.”
“I told you.”
Norah’s pulse accelerated.
“I don’t have anyone.”
Her voice dropped.
“I don’t have another life.”
“Good.”
The word carried absolute possession.
“Because you belong to this 1 now.”
Dominic’s hand moved behind her neck.
His fingers entered the hair at her nape.
He held her securely.
Not violently.
His thumb traced slow circles against her pulse.
“28 years.”
His voice softened.
“And nobody saw you.”
Norah held his eyes.
“No 1 understood what you could do.”
“I’m an accountant.”
She clung to the word.
“I balance ledgers.”
Dominic laughed quietly.
“You dismantled the finances of a Boston crime syndicate in 6 hours.”
His gaze darkened.
“You are not an accountant.”
He leaned closer.
“You are an architect.”
His voice dropped.
“And you are going to help me redesign this entire empire.”
Norah had spent a decade avoiding touch.
Crowds.
Casual contact.
Human closeness.
Now Dominic occupied every inch of her awareness.
“I told you the truth last night.”
Her voice trembled.
“I don’t know how to do this.”
She swallowed.
“I don’t know how to be this.”
Dominic’s face changed.
Some of the hardness disappeared.
“You think innocence makes you weak.”
“It makes me a liability.”
“It makes you a blank slate.”
His voice became lower.
“You have no habits from old relationships.”
He held her.
“No attachments I need to sever.”
His possessiveness sharpened.
“No memories of past lovers living in your head.”
His eyes locked on hers.
“Every 1st you experience will be with me.”
The words sent a shiver through Norah.
He was not treating her inexperience as something embarrassing.
He regarded it as untouched ground that belonged entirely to the future he intended to build.
“Dominic.”
It was the 1st time she had spoken his name without distance.
His eyes immediately darkened.
“Say it again.”
“Dominic.”
He kissed her.
There was nothing tentative about it.
May you like
His mouth was hot and demanding.
Bourbon and adrenaline.
