Chapter 9 - The Woman at Dominic’s Table
The first bullet shattered the glass.
Dominic threw Riley down.
The second struck the wall.
They crawled into the hallway.
Riley grabbed the emergency bag Dominic had insisted she keep.
“You were right.”
“Say it again.”
“Not now.”
They escaped through the stairwell.
The shooter vanished.
Dominic took Riley to the last place Anthony would expect.
Castelli headquarters.
Not to hide her.
To introduce her.
Thirty-seven captains, managers, attorneys, and legitimate business heads sat around the conference table.
Dominic entered with Riley.
Murmurs began.
He placed both hands on the table.
“Anthony Valente has put a price on Riley Hayes.”
Silence.
“If anyone here accepts it, assists it, or looks away from it, you answer to me.”
One captain stood.
“You’re risking everything for a butcher?”
Riley looked at him.
Dominic did too.
“No.”
He paused.
“I’m risking what remains of a corrupt organization to protect the woman whose father died trying to clean up what ours created.”
Nobody spoke.
Dominic began dismantling the old protection operation that day.
Businesses would no longer pay.
Debts were canceled.
Legitimate holdings were separated.
Men who refused could leave.
Some did.
Others stayed.
Riley watched a mafia empire begin transforming not because Dominic suddenly became innocent, but because he finally stopped pretending inherited power excused inherited crimes.
That night they ate alone.
Riley asked, “Why?”
Dominic knew what she meant.
Why her?
He could have said because she was fearless.
Because she had challenged him.
Because he had thought about her every hour since the knife.
Instead:
“Because when you had a blade at my throat, you could have cut me.”
“But I didn’t.”
“You wanted control. Not blood.”
Riley looked at him.
“So?”
“So I realized you had more restraint with a knife than I’d had with an empire.”
She had no joke for that.
He reached across the table.
She let him touch her hand.
Their first kiss came later.
Quiet.
Careful.
Neither surrendered anything.
For once, that was exactly why it mattered.
Then Riley’s phone buzzed.
A photograph.
Her burned butcher shop.
Someone stood inside the ruins.
Anthony Valente.
He held her father’s old scale.
Under the photograph were six words.
COME ALONE OR I DESTROY IT.
Riley looked toward Dominic.
But another message arrived before she could speak.
THIS TIME, DON’T BRING CASTELLI.
May you like
Then came a third.
I KNOW WHERE YOUR MOTHER IS...
