“You’re Just A Nobody!” The Bully Mocked—Then The Mafia Boss Kissed Her Hand Before Everyone Spotlight8

Dora stood in the center of the vast open living room for a long time.

The silence in the penthouse was absolute—engineered by millions of dollars in soundproofing and thick, bullet-resistant glass. Below her, the city of Boston was a grid of indifferent amber lights. Down there, people were sleeping, arguing, working graveyard shifts. Down there, a war was starting over a spilled martini and a wounded ego.

Up here, she was entirely alone.

She didn’t cry. Crying burned energy she couldn’t afford to lose.

Instead, her survival instincts—honed by years of evading eviction notices and navigating dangerous neighborhoods—kicked in. She began to move. She needed to know her cage.

Dora walked the perimeter of the penthouse. She checked the windows. They didn’t open. She found the master bedroom—a massive space dominated by a king-sized bed perfectly made with dark charcoal linens. She checked the master bathroom, opening cabinets. No weapons, just expensive cologne, straight razors, and sterile white towels.

She moved to the kitchen. It was immaculate, a chef’s dream that looked like it had never been used. She opened the refrigerator. It was stocked with bottled water, expensive cuts of vacuum-sealed meat, and fresh vegetables.

She stared at the food. Her stomach gave a hollow, painful cramp. She hadn’t eaten since a stale bagel at five in the morning.

If they come through that door to kill me, Dora thought, I am not dying on an empty stomach.

She found a heavy cast iron skillet in one of the lower cabinets. She set it on the induction stove. She chopped an onion with a pristine Santoku knife she found in a block on the counter. The rhythmic thack-thack-thack of the blade against the cutting board was the only sound in the apartment. It grounded her. It was normal.

She cooked a steak. She made a pan sauce with butter and a bottle of red wine she found on the counter. She ate standing over the island, tearing into the meat with a fork, chewing methodically.

Midnight passed. Then 1:00 a.m. Then 3:00.

She didn’t sleep.

She sat on the leather sofa, her knees pulled to her chest, the heavy cast iron skillet resting on the glass coffee table within arm’s reach. It was a pathetic weapon against men with guns. But she wasn’t going down without swinging.

She watched the sky over the Atlantic Ocean slowly turn from pitch black to a bruised, dull purple. The city began to wake up. Morning news shows would be broadcasting soon. People would be commuting. And Dora had no idea if Victor Romano was alive or dead.

She thought about her life. The endless string of minimum-wage jobs. The rooms she had rented—cramped, windowless, paid in cash. The car she had slept in when things got really bad. The loneliness that had become as familiar as her own heartbeat.

She had never let anyone in. Not really. Trust was a luxury she couldn’t afford. People left. People betrayed. People used you up and threw you away.

But Victor Romano had come back for her.

He had torn down a building because she got fired. He had spent eight months looking for her. He had kissed her hand in front of a room full of billionaires, marking her as his, and in doing so, had painted a target on her back.

I have something to come back for now.

The words echoed in her mind. She didn’t know what to do with them. She didn’t know what to do with any of this.

At 6:14 a.m., the elevator machinery groaned deep within the walls.

Dora’s spine snapped straight. She grabbed the handle of the cast iron skillet. The metal was cold against her palm. She stood up, her bare feet planted firmly on the hardwood floor, her breathing shallow and fast.

The heavy oak door unlocked.

It swung open slowly.

Victor stood in the doorway.

He didn’t look like the untouchable phantom from the ballroom. His midnight blue suit jacket was gone. The black dress shirt was torn at the shoulder and plastered to his chest with sweat and drying blood. His knuckles were raw, split open, and stained dark crimson. A brutal dark bruise was already blooming along the left side of his jaw.

He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. He leaned heavily against the wood, his eyes finding Dora. He looked at her standing in the middle of the room in his oversized cashmere sweater, gripping a frying pan like a battle axe.

A slow, exhausted, genuine laugh rumbled in his chest. It ended in a harsh cough.

“I told Leo to shoot anyone who came up here.” Victor rasped, his voice sounding like sandpaper. “I didn’t realize I’d have to worry about you taking a skillet to my skull if I survived the night.”

Dora didn’t laugh. She slowly lowered the pan, her hands shaking so badly she had to set it on the counter before she dropped it.

“Is it over?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

Victor pushed himself off the door. He walked with a slight limp, moving toward the kitchen island. “Lorenzo Moretti is dead. His brother is on a plane to Montreal and won’t be coming back. The bounty is cancelled.”

He reached the island, gripping the marble edge to steady himself. He looked at the half-empty bottle of wine from her cooking, grabbed it by the neck, and took a long, steady pull straight from the glass.

“You’re bleeding,” Dora said.

Victor looked down at his ruined shirt. “Not all of it is mine.”

“Sit down before you fall down.” Her voice was sharp, a reflex—the cynical waitress and the pragmatic survivor taking over.

Victor didn’t argue. He moved to the leather sofa and practically collapsed onto it, letting his head fall back against the cushions. He closed his eyes.

Dora went to the bathroom. She grabbed the wooden first aid box he had used on her finger hours ago, along with a stack of wet towels. She walked back into the living room and stood over him.

“Shirt off,” she said.

Victor opened one eye. “You’re very demanding in my house.”

“You’re getting blood on the leather. Take it off.”

He groaned, sitting forward. His fingers fumbled with the buttons. He was losing dexterity, running on fumes and adrenaline that was rapidly crashing. Dora batted his hands away with a sharp tsk. She unbuttoned the ruined shirt herself, her small, nimble fingers working quickly.

She peeled the fabric back over his shoulders.

He was covered in bruises. The old scar on his side, the one she had stitched up in the diner, was angry and red, but it held. The new damage was a deep, ugly laceration across his ribs—not deep enough to need stitches, but deep enough to leave a scar.

“Lean forward,” she ordered.

He obeyed. She pressed a wet towel to the wound, cleaning away the dried blood. Victor hissed through his teeth but didn’t move.

“You’re good at this,” he said quietly.

“I’ve had practice.”

“On yourself?”

Dora didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. The scars she carried weren’t visible, but they were there, written in the way she flinched at loud noises and slept with one eye open.

She finished cleaning the wound and reached for the antiseptic. “This will sting.”