Chapter 2 - The Mafia Marriage Nobody Could Escape
The folder stayed open on the marble table between us.
Nobody moved.
Nobody spoke.
I stared at the photograph inside it, trying to understand how a moment from my past had somehow found its way into Dominic Rossi’s hands.
The picture showed me seven years younger.
My hair pulled back.
My nursing uniform stained with rain and blood.
My hands wrapped around the arm of a stranger I had thought would die before sunrise.
But I wasn’t the only person in the picture.
Behind me, barely visible in the shadows of the alley, stood another figure.
Someone watching.
Someone who had taken the photograph.
Dominic’s eyes remained fixed on me.
“The person who sent the assassin after me was you?”
His voice was quiet.
That was worse than anger.
I had learned that about Dominic Rossi.
When he shouted, people prepared themselves.
When he became silent, people disappeared.
“I don’t know what that means,” I whispered.
He looked at the note again.
Then at the photograph.
“Clara.”
“I didn’t send anyone.”
His jaw tightened.
“My men found this inside an old case file.”
“Then someone wanted you to believe I did.”
The room became colder.
Dominic leaned back against the sofa despite the pain in his side.
“You expect me to believe that?”
I looked at him.
“Yes.”
A dangerous silence followed.
Most people probably feared this moment.
They would have begged.
Explained.
Cried.
But I wasn’t most people.
Because I knew something Dominic didn’t.
I had saved his life before I knew his name.
I had held pressure against his wound while rain poured over both of us.
I had watched him fight to stay awake.
And I knew the look in his eyes.
He wasn’t looking at me like an enemy.
He was looking at me like someone trying to solve a mystery.
“Tell me exactly what happened that night,” he said.
I swallowed.
“Why?”
“Because I need to know if the woman who saved my life is the same woman who tried to end it.”
My chest tightened.
“I never tried to hurt you.”
“Then tell me.”
I looked away.
The memory came back too easily.
The alley.
The blood.
The stranger who refused to give me his name.
Seven years ago.
I had just finished a fourteen-hour clinical shift.
I was exhausted.
I wanted coffee.
I wanted sleep.
I wanted to stop feeling like every emergency room patient carried the weight of the entire world on their shoulders.
Then I heard something behind the diner.
A sound between a breath and a groan.
I almost ignored it.
Almost.
But I was a nurse.
Even a student nurse.
And my feet moved before my brain could convince them not to.
That was when I found him.
A young man leaning against a brick wall.
Blood covering his shirt.
A weapon lying several feet away.
The first thing he said was:
“Leave.”
Not help.
Not call someone.
Leave.
I remember being angry.
“You’re bleeding.”
“You don’t understand.”
“No, you don’t understand. You’re going to pass out.”
His eyes were dark.
Sharp.
Terrified.
Not of dying.
Of being found.
I had called emergency services before.
I knew what happened when people with money and power entered hospitals.
Questions.
Police.
Records.
Enemies.
So I made a decision.
I stayed.
And I saved him.
“I didn’t know who you were,” I said.
Dominic watched me.
“Did you know my last name?”
“No.”
“Did you know Rossi?”
I shook my head.
“I only knew a man was dying.”
Something changed in his expression.
For a moment, the dangerous mafia boss disappeared.
And I saw the wounded stranger again.
“Why didn’t you leave?”
The question surprised me.
“What?”
“That night. Why didn’t you leave?”
I looked at him.
“Because you needed help.”
“That’s not enough.”
“It was enough for me.”
The words seemed to affect him more than I expected.
Before he could answer, one of his guards stepped forward.
“Boss.”
Dominic didn’t look away from me.
“What?”
“We need to move you upstairs. The wound needs proper treatment.”
“I’m fine.”
“You were shot.”
“I noticed.”
I almost rolled my eyes.
Even injured, he was impossible.
“You need stitches.”
His gaze shifted back to me.
“You’ll do it?”
The question caught me off guard.
“You trust me?”
“No.”
The answer was immediate.
Then he paused.
“But I remember your hands.”
My heart skipped.
The guard looked confused.
I ignored him.
“You need a hospital.”
“No.”
“Dominic—”
“No hospitals.”
I knew what that meant.
No records.
No doctors asking questions.
No possibility of enemies tracking him.
A man like Dominic Rossi survived because he trusted very few people.
Apparently, somehow, I had become one of them.
I grabbed my medical bag.
“Fine.”
His eyebrow lifted.
“Fine?”
“I’ll treat you here.”
“You’re angry.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m helping a man who threatened my family into marriage.”
The room went silent.
There it was.
The truth neither of us liked discussing.
Our marriage.
The deal.
The debt.
The reason I was sitting beside the most dangerous man in Chicago.
Dominic’s expression hardened slightly.
“I never threatened you.”
“You threatened my brother.”
“Yes.”
“You knew what would happen.”
“I knew your brother made a mistake.”
“And you used it.”
His jaw tightened.
“I gave him a choice.”
“No.”
I looked directly at him.
“You gave me a choice.”
For the first time that night, Dominic looked away.
Only for a second.
But I saw it.
Regret.
Before I could say anything else, the lights flickered.
Everyone immediately reached for their weapons.
The room transformed.
The guards moved.
The doors locked.
Dominic’s face changed from injured man back into the person everyone feared.
“Who knows I’m here?”
One guard checked his phone.
“No one outside the team.”
Dominic looked at me.
“Stay behind me.”
I almost laughed.
“You can barely stand.”
His eyes narrowed.
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
Another flicker.
Then darkness.
The penthouse fell completely silent.
I heard footsteps.
Not outside.
Inside.
Someone was already here.
One of the guards turned on a flashlight.
The beam moved across the room.
Nothing.
Then a sound came from the hallway.
A small metallic click.
Dominic immediately pushed himself up.
“Everyone stay back.”
I saw pain cross his face.
But he hid it quickly.
A shadow moved near the office door.
The guard aimed his weapon.
“Show yourself.”
No answer.
Then a phone vibrated.
Not Dominic’s.
Not any of the guards’.
Mine.
I looked down.
A message appeared from an unknown number.
My blood froze.
Because it contained a picture.
A picture taken tonight.
Me touching Dominic’s scar.
Underneath it were five words.
You should have let him die.
Dominic saw my expression.
“What is it?”
I didn’t answer.
Another message arrived.
This time, only one sentence.
Ask your husband who really saved him that night.
Dominic took the phone from my hand.
His face changed as he read it.
Because he recognized something I didn’t.
The sender.
“Who is it?” I asked.
He didn’t answer.
“Dominic.”
His fingers tightened around the phone.
The office door behind us slowly moved.
Not opened.
Moved.
Like someone on the other side was turning the handle.
Dominic stepped in front of me.
His injured body ready for a fight.
Then a voice came from inside the locked office.
A voice he knew.
A voice that should have been impossible.
“Dominic…”
May you like
His face went completely pale.
Because the person behind the door whispered his childhood nickname.
