Chapter 6
DOMINIC
Rafe is waiting in my office when I arrive the next morning. It’s never a good sign when he beats me in to the office. He’s sitting in one of the chairs across from my desk with one ankle crossed over his knee and a coffee in his hand.
“So, we should talk about last night,” he says before I even have a chance to sit down.
“I’m not in the mood,” I tell him flatly.
“Fine,” he says, putting his feet up on the desk. “Then let’s talk about how you have feelings for your assistant.”
“Same category.” I sigh. “Kevin Armand is lucky he got away with just a punch.”
He tosses a folder in front of me. “You’re right about that.
Because I stayed up all night and found more evidence of Armand and Calderone working together for the last three decades.
They’ve kept it quiet, but once I found that college link, I also found an illegal gambling ring.
Then, I realized they’ve been running gambling joints up and down the Eastern Seaboard ever since. ”
“Why didn’t any of that show up in our vetting?” I ask, looking through the folder.
“Because neither of them put their names on it. It happened through shell corporations and miles and miles of coverups. The only thing that traces them back to it is the name—”
Before he can finish, there’s a knock at the door. We both look up to see Sofia standing there, clutching her purse to her side.
“I was hoping we could talk,” she says, shooting a look to Rafe.
“That’s my cue to leave,” he answers with a shit-eating grin. “Good luck, you two.”
She watches him warily as he strolls out the door. As much as I need to get to the bottom of this connection between Armand and Calderone, I’m glad Sofia interrupted us. I spent all last night worried about her.
“How are you doing?” I ask her seriously. “Last night got a little intense.”
Her face darkens instantly, and I think it’s about the incident until she says, “Only because you got involved.”
I study her with some apprehension. Her eyes are narrowed, her arms crossed, like she’s angry with me.
“Was I wrong to stop him?”
“You were wrong to punch him,” she says pointedly. “I was handling it just fine on my own.”
“It seemed like it, with the way he had you cornered against a wall.”
“I’ve dealt with men worse than Kevin Armand my whole life, Dominic,” she shoots back, her voice rising. “I never needed you there before, and I didn’t need you last night.”
I lean back slightly in my chair and can’t help but smile.
All these weeks, I’ve known Sofia is competent.
I’ve seen her handle schedules and organize files and just generally deal with a heap of bullshit that would have sent lesser assistants running for the hills.
This is the first time, though, that she’s really challenged me.
She’s usually rushing to help in any way she can, but now she’s pushing back. I’m fascinated.
“It was completely unprofessional,” she continues. “If I’m going to continue working here, I need you to keep calm when a client gets out of hand.”
“That isn’t your place to ask me,” I remind her. “It’s my name on the building and my reputation on the line. I can’t let people think that it’s okay to disrespect my employees. Or to threaten physical harm.”
“Yes, let’s focus on your reputation and not the fact that you shouldn’t be working with creeps who’d hurt your employees in the first place!” she explodes.
“So, you admit that you got hurt.”
Her mouth snaps shut and she narrows her eyes at me. “All I’m admitting is that I understand why you have a hard time holding onto assistants.”
Ouch. Right to the heart.
“Sofia, this isn’t something that has happened before on my watch, and I promise you that it isn’t going to happen again.”
“Good,” she says harshly. “Because I can’t work for a violent man.”
That pulls a laugh out of me. If only she knew exactly how violent I can be. She shifts in her chair at my reaction and looks me up and down.
“Is there something funny about that?”
I shake my head. “Nothing to concern you, Sofia,” I tell her, because I fully intend to keep my business and my crime syndicate as separate as I always have. She doesn’t need to see what happens behind closed doors.
“It does concern me when you’re punching clients in front of me!” she shouts in frustration. “It concerns me when I’m working for a man I don’t know nearly as well as I thought I did.”
That stings too. For better or worse, Sofia is incredibly observant. She’s gotten to know me well just by watching my routine and running my life these last six weeks. And she’s seen enough to know there’s a lot she doesn’t know.
She’s very familiar with Dominic Vieri, CEO of Vieri Holdings.
She knows the man with the hotels, clubs, acquisitions, and billions of dollars in assets.
She doesn’t know the other side. She doesn’t know about the money laundering or the extortion or the bribes.
She doesn’t know the side of me that keeps men like Kevin Armand scared to even blink at her the wrong way.
That’s the side she’s unwittingly asking to see, and I can’t allow it. It would complicate the carefully crafted life I’ve built.
“You know me well enough,” I tell her carefully. “But I understand if you feel that you can’t do this job anymore. Do you want to quit?”
She looks taken aback. “No… that’s… that isn’t what I meant,” she sputters.
“Are you sure?” I ask seriously. “Because you’ve come in here all fire and brimstone this morning. I get it, Sofia. My life is complicated, and I won’t begrudge you that decision.”
“I need this job,” she answers quietly.
“I’d give you an excellent recommendation,” I go on. “I could even help you find your next role.”
“No other assistant role in this city will pay me what you do,” she says, and I catch the tension in her jaw.
She doesn’t want to admit this to me. She needs the money. I get that life is expensive, but the way she says it makes me think that there’s more than just ordinary bills keeping her up at night. There’s something deeper. It seems I’m not the only one who’s keeping secrets.
“Well, then, we’re agreed,” I say. “You’ll keep working here and I’ll keep living my life the way I need to.”
“Dominic,” she says fiercely, finding her voice again. “I need you to promise that you aren’t going to do anything like that again. I need you to promise me that you aren’t going to go all macho man on any more clients on my behalf.”
“Trust me,” I tell her. “It’s better if I punch them in the face than if you do. My name carries a lot of gravitas.”
She clenches her jaw again. It’s the best I can offer her without giving her a full picture of why no one would dare retaliate against me. She’ll just have to accept that and move on. Otherwise, we’re back at square one.
“Fine,” she says. “Then I’ll have to make sure that I’m not put in a situation like that again.”
I nod.
“That sounds like a much better plan. In general, your safety is much more important than a job. Even this one. So, in the future I need you to abstain from following anyone into a dark corner, even if you think you have to. Always come get me first. That will help avoid any unpleasantness.”
She narrows her eyes, but eventually nods at my request.
“I should get back to my desk,” she mutters, getting up and leaving without a proper goodbye.
I watch her go, then stare at the empty space she’s left behind. This is a clusterfuck. Worst of all, there’s an angry monster inside me clawing at the surface to get out. He’s been very active the last few weeks. Since she started, in fact.
I first noticed it when all the men on our floor were trying to flirt with her.
It was easy then to say that I was frustrated because work wasn’t being done.
If it weren’t for Rafe and his goddamn nosiness, I might still think that way.
He just had to point out how pretty Sofia is, and make the suggestion that I could be attracted to her.
The monster only grew stronger when I saw Leonard Shaw checking out her ass one day.
It took everything in me not to fire him right then and there.
Later, when Sofia put him in his place, I was glad for it, but I also worried that he would try to retaliate in some way.
He isn’t a man who accepts humility easily.
Sure enough, he sent me a strongly worded email later that day that no assistant should feel the right to publicly correct him.
I quickly reminded him that no assistant would have to correct him if he wasn’t being such a pompous ass.
That shut him up quickly. But the fact still remained that I would fire half my male staff to keep them from leering at her.
Seeing her pinned against the wall last night was the final straw.
I would have killed Kevin if Rafe hadn’t been there.
Worse, though, my first instinct wasn’t rage.
When I walked in on them, before I realized Sofia was fighting him, I felt jealous.
I wanted to be the man pressing her against the wall.
I wanted to be the one sneaking off with her in the middle of an event.
That’s my worst sin of all. I can’t want her in that way. It’s not smart for either of us, least of all me. The only thing I can do is protect her when I can and try not to let my jealousy rear its ugly head. Not ever. Because if I give this thing life, it will completely consume me.
So, instead, I do the one thing I can do. I open up my email and shoot off a message to payroll. Sofia is due overtime after last night anyway. I just triple what I would normally pay. It’s an absurd amount of money, but I make the head of payroll sign off on it anyway.