Chapter 2 - “My mother was drinking tea in a diner, and I let my enemies get within 10 ft of her. You paid the price for my arrogance.”
He lowered his hand and stepped away, putting his emotional armor back into place.
“Get dressed. We’re leaving the compound tonight.”
Sadi blinked.
“Leaving? Leo said it wasn’t safe to even walk the grounds.”
“Leo worries about my safety. I worry about optics. We’ve been married for a month and no one outside this house has seen you. The Morettis are spreading rumors that you’re on life support, that our marriage is a sham, that I’m weak and hiding.”
“So what? I’m a prop?”
Sadi crossed her arms, then immediately winced as the movement pulled against her healing chest.
Dominic’s expression softened for only a fraction of a second.
“You are my wife. Tonight the city is going to see exactly what that means. There’s a dress on the bed. Be ready in an hour.”
He left behind the scent of sandalwood and cold rain.
Sadi returned to the bedroom.
A garment bag lay across the heavy duvet.
She opened it.
Inside was a dress the color of dried blood, a masterpiece of heavy silk and structured boning designed to cover her collarbone and ribs while clinging to every other curve of her body.
Beside it sat a velvet box containing a diamond necklace that probably cost more than Sal’s Diner.
Sadi stared.
The dress was not merely clothing.
It was a uniform.
She was being drafted into a world she had never volunteered to join.
A dry, humorless laugh escaped her.
“50-cent tips to blood diamonds. What a promotion.”
She removed the robe and reached for the silk.
The charity gala was being held at the Field Museum, beneath towering limestone walls and vaulted ceilings.
It was neutral ground.
Politicians, CEOs, the city’s elite, and the men who secretly controlled them mingled beneath the shadow of a massive T. rex skeleton.
Sadi sat rigidly in the back of a Maybach while Chicago blurred beyond rain-slicked windows.
The silk dress felt like armor.
The diamonds around her throat felt like an extremely expensive leash.
Dominic sat beside her, pouring 2 fingers of bourbon from a crystal decanter.
He wore a midnight-blue tuxedo that made his broad shoulders appear even more imposing.
He handed her the glass.
“Drink. It’ll help with the nerves.”
“I’m not nervous.”
Sadi took a swallow.
The liquor burned a hot trail down her throat.
“I just don’t know the rules.”
“The rules are simple. Stay by my side. Don’t accept drinks from anyone except me. If anyone asks about the shooting, it was a tragic misunderstanding, and you are thrilled to be part of the Russo family.”
“Lie, basically.”
“Survive, basically.”
The Maybach stopped outside the museum.
Paparazzi crowded behind velvet ropes, camera flashes strobing like a violent electrical storm.
Dominic’s security detail exited first and formed a human wall.
Dominic stepped out, buttoned his jacket, then turned and offered Sadi his hand.
She looked at his scarred palm.
This was the precipice.
Taking that hand meant stepping fully into his underworld.
Sadi placed her fingers in his.
His grip was firm, grounding her immediately.
When they passed through the grand bronze doors, the atmosphere inside the cavernous hall shifted.
Conversations faded.
Heads turned.
A quiet tension rippled through the crowd.
The king had arrived.
And he had brought the waitress who had cheated death.
Sadi held her chin high.
Dominic kept a possessive hand at the small of her back, a silent warning to everyone around them.
They moved through the gala as Dominic exchanged calculated pleasantries with aldermen and union bosses.
Sadi offered tight smiles and noncommittal answers.
She noticed the way men regarded Dominic with a mixture of naked fear and calculating greed.
She noticed the women watching her with thinly concealed contempt and morbid curiosity.
“You’re doing fine,” Dominic murmured.
“I feel like a piece of meat at a tiger convention.”
A low chuckle vibrated through Dominic’s chest.
It was the first time Sadi had heard him laugh.
The sound was dark and rich, and it caused an involuntary movement inside her stomach.
“Dominic. What a profound surprise.”
The voice was slick with false warmth.
Dominic’s hand immediately tightened around Sadi’s waist.
His entire body became rigid, transforming from a man into a weapon.
Sadi turned.
The approaching man was younger than Dominic and impeccably dressed in a sharp silver-gray suit. He had a handsome, angular face.
His eyes were flat and dead.
They were the same eyes she remembered from the gunman inside the diner.
“Lorenzo.”
Dominic spoke the name as though it were poison.
Lorenzo Moretti smiled, revealing stark white teeth.
2 enormous men in tailored suits flanked him, their hands resting near their waistbands.
Dominic’s guards immediately moved closer.
“I heard you were hiding in your fortress, licking your wounds.”
Lorenzo stopped 3 ft away.
His gaze slid toward Sadi and traveled slowly over her body with deliberate disrespect.
“And this must be the famous shield. The little waitress.”
“Address me, Lorenzo,” Dominic growled, stepping partly in front of Sadi. “Or I’ll have Leo throw you through the glass display cases.”
Lorenzo raised his hands in mock surrender.
“Just paying my respects to the bride, Dom. It’s a beautiful story. Tragic, really, the lengths you have to go just to keep your mother breathing.”
He leaned closer.
“How much did she cost? Or did you threaten to finish the job if she didn’t put the ring on?”
Dominic moved so quickly that Sadi barely registered it.
His hand closed around Lorenzo’s throat and drove him backward into a marble pillar.
The impact echoed.
Glasses stopped clinking.
Weapons were half drawn on both sides.
“Dominic.”
He did not hear her.
His grip tightened while Lorenzo choked and clawed at his hand.
“Dominic, let him go.”
Sadi stepped forward and pressed her palm against Dominic’s chest, directly over his racing heart.
He froze.
He looked down at her.
“He wants you to do it. He wants you to cause a scene on neutral ground. It makes you look unhinged and makes him look like the victim.”
Her voice fell to a hard whisper.
“Let him go.”
Dominic stared at her.
The violence slowly receded from his eyes and was replaced by calculating clarity.
He released Lorenzo and shoved him away.
Lorenzo coughed and adjusted his crushed collar, his face red with humiliation and rage.
“A waitress who gives orders,” he sneered. “Careful, Dom. The help is forgetting its place.”
Sadi did not retreat.
She did not hide behind Dominic.
She stepped closer until she was inches from Lorenzo.
She smelled peppermint and fear on his breath.
“I took 4 hollow points to the chest, and I’m standing here in diamonds. The men you sent didn’t even make it out of the diner. If I were you, Lorenzo, I wouldn’t worry about my place. I’d worry about my aim.”
Silence settled around them.
Lorenzo’s eyes widened.
No civilian spoke to a Moretti that way.
Dominic said nothing.
He placed his hand against Sadi’s lower back again, but this time it was not merely protective.
It was absolute possession.
“Enjoy the gala, Lorenzo.”
Dominic guided her away.
They reached the private exit in silence.
Sadi’s hands shook so violently that she had to clench them into fists.
The adrenaline was collapsing, leaving her cold and nauseated.
As soon as the bronze doors closed behind them, leaving them alone in the dim loading area while they waited for the car, Dominic turned her around and backed her against the cool stone wall.
He did not hurt her.
But he trapped her there between broad shoulders and expensive wool.
“Do you have any idea what you just did?”
“I kept you from starting a war in a museum.”
“You just put a target on your back the size of a building. He won’t let that insult go. He can’t.”
“He already wanted me dead, Dominic. What’s the difference?”
Dominic released a rough, desperate sound.
His hands rose and cupped her face, his thumbs tracing her jaw.
“The difference is that now I know exactly what I’m going to lose if he gets to you.”
He kissed her.
It was not gentle or polite.
It was desperate, tasting of bourbon and adrenaline.
Sadi gasped and instinctively grabbed his lapels.
She thought she would pull away.
She thought the cynical part of her would reject the mafia boss whose world had destroyed her old life.
But logic vanished.
She kissed him back, tangling her fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck and pulling him closer until she could no longer tell where her phantom pain ended and his heat began.
The ride back to the estate was suffocatingly quiet.
The partition had been raised, separating them from the driver and armed guard.
Sadi sat on one side of the leather bench, lips swollen, her heart pounding against her healing ribs.
Dominic sat opposite, staring through the window.
The kiss hung between them.
The transactional structure of their marriage had shattered.
Something feral had taken its place.
The convoy left the highway and entered the secluded, tree-lined road leading toward the Russo estate.
“Dominic, about what happened—”
“Don’t.”
He turned toward her.
“Don’t diminish it. Don’t tell me it was just adrenaline.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
Dominic reached across the seat and took her hand.
His thumb moved over her knuckles.
“When you stood up to him, I’ve never seen anything like that. You don’t belong in my world, Sadi. But God help me, you rule it.”
The SUV slowed as it approached the massive wrought-iron gates.
Rain had intensified, turning the road into a slick black mirror.
Sadi looked ahead.
Something was wrong.
The guardhouse was dark.
The floodlights that normally illuminated the perimeter were dead.
Dominic noticed a fraction of a second later.
His posture changed.
He dropped Sadi’s hand and struck the glass partition.
“Don’t stop the car. Ram the gate.”
The driver hesitated.
“Boss, the gate is reinforced steel.”
“I said ram it.”
Dominic pulled a matte-black SIG Sauer from beneath his jacket.
Then he grabbed Sadi by the shoulders and forced her toward the floorboards.
“Get down. Cover your head.”
The driver accelerated.
The armored engine roared.
They never reached the gate.
An explosion struck the right side of the SUV.
The concussive force blew armored glass inward, showering the cabin with crystalline fragments.
The vehicle fishtailed across the wet asphalt before crashing into the stone perimeter wall.
Sadi was thrown against the base of the seats.
The impact drove the air from her lungs.
Pain exploded through her healing ribs.
Copper filled her mouth.
“Sadi.”
Dominic hauled her from the floorboards.
A deep gash crossed his forehead, blood streaming down his face.
“Are you hit? Talk to me.”
“I’m okay.”
Her ears rang violently.
“I’m okay.”
Outside, the night erupted with automatic gunfire.
Bullets sparked against the armored chassis.
The 2 trailing vehicles returned fire, muzzle flashes illuminating the woods.
“They used an EMP or cut the mains to the estate.”
Dominic tried to kick open his damaged door.
“The driver is dead. We can’t stay in this box. We have to move to the tree line.”
Sadi looked forward.
The driver was slumped over the wheel.
The guard in the passenger seat returned fire through a shattered window, blood spreading across his shoulder.
Panic seized Sadi.
It was the diner again.
The helplessness.
The noise.
Then she looked at Dominic holding the door open and waiting for her.
The panic receded.
She was not a waitress trapped beneath a booth anymore.
She was a Russo.
“Go.”
Sadi seized the hem of her expensive silk dress and tore it to her thigh so she could run.
Dominic grabbed her hand.
They threw themselves from the vehicle.
Bullets tore through the wet earth around them.
Dominic fired over his shoulder as they ran, his aim terrifyingly precise even at a sprint.
A man in tactical gear emerged near the gate.
Dominic shot him in the knee.
They reached the oak trees.
Rain soaked them immediately.
Sadi slipped in her heels, kicked them off, and ran barefoot through mud and wet leaves.
“Keep moving.”
Dominic dragged her toward a side entrance.
“The house generator is EMP-shielded. Security is coming.”
The heavy side door burst open.
Leo and 4 armed men poured out, assault rifles laying down suppressive fire toward the gates.
“Boss, get inside!”
Dominic pushed Sadi through first.
Leo slammed the reinforced door and threw the deadbolt as bullets hammered against the other side.
Emergency red lights bathed the marble foyer.
Guards shouted and moved toward defensive positions.
Dominic ignored everything.
He pulled Sadi away from the exterior walls and into a windowless security room.
The metal door slammed shut.
Silence fell.
Sadi collapsed against the wall and slid to the floor.
Her silk dress was ruined, covered in mud and blood.
She hugged her knees and shook violently from cold and adrenaline.
Dominic stood in the center of the room.
He wiped blood from his forehead with the back of his hand.
Then he looked at Sadi.
He crossed the room and dropped to his knees.
“Are you hurt?”
His hands moved frantically over her arms and shoulders, searching for bullet wounds.
“Tell me where you’re hurt.”
“Just my ribs from the crash.”
She caught his wrists.
“Dominic, I’m okay.”
He released a ragged breath.
Then he lowered his head onto her uninjured shoulder.
He was shaking.
The man who ordered killings, commanded an army, and had nearly crushed Lorenzo Moretti’s throat was trembling violently in her arms.
“I thought I lost you.”
The words tore out of him.
“When that car hit the wall, I thought I killed you.”
Sadi released his wrists and wrapped her arms around his neck.
She pulled him closer.
He smelled of rain, gunpowder, and terror.
“I’m right here.”
Dominic pulled back and framed her face between his hands.
Blood from his forehead mixed with the rain on her cheeks.
He kissed her, pressing her backward until she was pinned between his body and the hard floor.
It was desperate, fueled by the narrow margin between life and death.
Sadi let the cynical, guarded pieces of herself fall away.
She did not care about the mud or blood.
She did not care about the gunfire outside.
She did not care that Dominic was a monster to the rest of the world.
There, in the darkness, he was hers.
3 sharp knocks struck the safe-room door.
Dominic pulled back.
The spell broke.
“Boss.”
Leo’s voice came through the steel.
“It’s clear. Perimeter is secured. 3 dead on our side. 6 of theirs in the dirt. The rest scattered into the woods.”
Dominic’s expression hardened.
The vulnerable man disappeared.
The head of the Chicago syndicate returned.
He unbolted the door.
The mansion smelled of cordite, wet ash, and copper.
Guards dragged bodies from the marble foyer while shattered glass crunched beneath heavy boots.
“Get her upstairs,” Dominic told Leo. “Post 2 men at her door. No one enters unless I clear it. Then assemble the capos in the study.”
He walked toward the west wing without looking back.
Sadi allowed Leo to escort her upstairs.
Her body ached with deep exhaustion.
Inside the master suite, she removed the ruined silk dress.
It landed on the floor in a bloodstained heap.
Under the scalding shower, she watched mud and Dominic’s blood spiral toward the drain in pale pink ribbons.
She was supposed to go to bed.
She was supposed to wait, safe and ignorant, while men decided the fate of the city.
That was the arrangement.
That was the gilded cage.
Sadi shut off the water.
She dressed in dark jeans, a black cashmere turtleneck, and heavy leather boots.
She pulled her wet hair into a tight knot.
Then she looked into the mirror.
The cynical waitress was dead.
The mafia wife in the silk dress was dead.
Sadi walked past the 2 armed guards outside her room and went directly to the study.
The heavy mahogany doors stood slightly open.
Inside, cigar smoke mingled with the sharp scent of scotch.
4 men surrounded Dominic’s desk. Maps of Chicago covered the surface, held flat beneath ashtrays and sidearms.
“We hit his warehouses,” a burly capo named Frank said, slamming his fist against the desk. “We burn the docks. We make him bleed money until his own men turn on him.”
“Moretti doesn’t care about money right now.”
Dominic leaned over the desk, his knuckles white. He had changed into a clean black shirt, but a butterfly bandage covered the gash on his forehead.
“He just hit my home. I insulted him in public, and then he tried to butcher my family in my own driveway. This isn’t about commerce. It’s about pride.”
Sadi pushed open the doors.
The creak of heavy wood drew every eye toward her.
Silence settled over the room.
Frank looked between her and Dominic.
Leo shifted uncomfortably.
“Sadi.”
Dominic straightened.
The warning was unmistakable.
“Go back upstairs.”
“No.”
She entered.
She walked to the desk and stood directly across from him.
“This war started because of me. He hates you, but he’s obsessed with me. I embarrassed him tonight. I’m the loose end that survived.”
“You’re my wife.”
Dominic moved around the desk.
“This is syndicate business.”
“This is my life. I took 4 bullets to get into this family. Dominic, don’t you dare treat me like a porcelain doll now. I’ve earned my seat at this table.”
Leo choked on a cough.
Frank stared at her.
No one spoke to Dominic Russo that way.
May you like
Not his capos.
Not his enemies.
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