Chapter 2
Dominic
She is nothing against my chest, but she anchors me to the earth with the force of a falling anvil.
I don't let her feet touch the pavement.
I stride through the damp, shadow-choked alley behind L'Ombra, my arms locked around her thighs and her back, crushing her to the blood-spattered front of my dress shirt.
She is shivering from the cold and the adrenaline crash.
She has both hands fist-clenched into the lapels of my suit jacket—the one I stripped off and wrapped her in to cover the thin, pathetic floral dress she wore to deliver flowers to a slaughterhouse.
I should have put a bullet in her. That is what a Don does. That is what a man who has spent twenty years meticulously engineering the annihilation of the Bellanti family does when a civilian walks into his interrogation room. A witness is a loose end, and a loose end always gets clipped.
Instead, I am breathing in the scent of her hair—sweet, cloying peony petals mixed with the sharp, metallic tang of pure terror.
My lungs expand with it. My brain, usually a cold, calculating machine that operates ten moves ahead, has narrowed to a single point.
Every variable I usually track has fallen away. There is only her.
Mine.
Fabio is already at the armored SUV, the heavy rear door swung wide.
He stands like a dark monolith in the glow of the taillights, his massive frame tight with the restless, aggressive energy of a soldier who is sick of waiting for a fight.
He inherited our mother's sharp jawline, and right now, it's locked in a hard, uncompromising line of objection.
He doesn't say a word as I approach, but the sheer volatility radiating from his posture speaks volumes.
I am compromising the operation. I am jeopardizing the ten men I brought from Pine Valley, the clean Ghost Fund money, the entire twenty-year revenge plan.
I look at my brother—the man I kept blind for twenty years to keep alive.
I fed him safe assignments, controlled his exposure, never told him why I was keeping him at arm's length from the real war.
He spent two decades furious at me for not trusting him, and every bit of that fury was the point.
An angry Fabio who didn't know the truth was a living Fabio.
My eyes are dead now, entirely flat, issuing a silent warning that if he speaks against this, I will put him on the ground.
Fabio swallows hard and dips his chin, stepping aside.
I slide into the backseat, but I do not deposit her on the rich leather beside me. I keep her on my lap. I pull her entirely across my thighs, my heavy arm wrapping around her waist, caging her against my chest. The door slams shut, sealing us in the soundproof cabin.
Her terror is thick in the air. Yet, beneath the fear and the peony sweetness, the faint scent of her physical reaction clings to the wool of my jacket. I press my jaw against the crown of her head and do not wash it off.
"Drive," I command. The word tears out of my throat, rough as crushed glass.
Fabio gets behind the wheel. The engine purrs, a low, guttural vibration that rumbles through the floorboards. As the SUV surges forward into the Chicago night, the streetlights bleed through the tinted windows, dragging bands of gold and shadow across the girl in my arms.
Sienna. That was the name on the delivery invoice I saw resting on the kitchen counter before the blood started flowing. Sienna Marchetti.
She gasps, a sharp, ragged sound, and pushes her palms against my chest. Her hands are small, the skin rough, the knuckles scraped. She's trying to put distance between us, her body instinctively rebelling against the heavy, dominant mass of a predator.
"Let me go," she chokes out. Her voice is a broken whisper.
Her chest heaves, the rapid rise and fall brushing the soft weight of her breasts against my holster.
My cock responds instantly, a thick, heavy throb that strains against my slacks.
I want to rip the jacket off her and bury my face between those tits, tasting the sweat and terror and peony sweetness.
I want to feel her pussy soaking through that thin dress, drenching my thighs as I claim every inch of her.
"Please. I didn't see anything. I won't tell anyone. Let me out."
"Stop fighting me," I tell her. I don't raise my voice.
I don't have to. The quiet, absolute authority in my tone makes her freeze.
I shift my hand, sliding my large palm up the curve of her spine until my fingers wrap around the nape of her neck.
The skin there is painfully soft, flushed with heat.
Her pulse beats against my thumb, frantic and chaotic like a trapped bird.
"I have a shop," she stammers, her wide, amber-hazel eyes darting to the locked doors, then up to my face.
The sheer size of me, the silver at my temples, the blood on my cuffs—she is taking it all in, and her mind is fracturing.
"I have to open the shop at six. Please.
Just drop me on the corner. I swear to God—"
"Your shop is closed," I state, my thumb stroking a slow, deliberate path over the pounding vein in her throat.
The tactile sensation of her skin under my calloused flesh sends a violent, pulsing throb straight to my cock.
I don't give a fuck that she's traumatized.
I don't give a fuck that I have another man's blood under my nails.
All I can feel is the friction of her thighs across my lap, her soaking pussy drenching the fabric of her dress as she presses against my cock.
My blood surges, a primal urge to shove my cock into her and quiet her sobbing with the rhythmic slap of my balls against her thighs.
She is terrified, and I am hard enough to break—that is the only truth in this car.
"What?" The word is a breathless sob.
"You aren't going back to the florist shop, Sienna. You aren't going back to your apartment. You live with me now."
"Dom," Fabio's voice is a low, dangerous rumble from the driver's seat, blunt and confrontational. He catches my eye in the rearview mirror. "The van. The Bellantis know the delivery van was there. If they trace the plates to her, they'll use her to get to us. She's a liability."
"Let them try," I say, my gaze never leaving Sienna's tear-streaked face.
"If a single Bellanti breathes in her direction, I will gut them in the street and hang their entrails from the Bean.
Santi has already cleared the alley. Your van is currently being stripped for trackers and parked in my private sub-basement.
It belongs to me now, just like everything else you own. "
Sienna whimpers, her hands curling into tight fists against my chest. She squeezes her eyes shut, trying to wake up from the nightmare.
I pull her closer, burying my face in the copper curls at her temple.
I shouldn't crowd her. I know I am suffocating her.
I am a forty-five-year-old mafia patriarch who has known nothing but violence, grief, and cold strategy for two decades.
I don't know how to be gentle. I only know how to possess.
The ride to the Gold Coast brownstone takes eleven minutes. I spend every second of it memorizing the erratic rhythm of her breathing, the exact shade of her pale skin, the delicate, arching slope of her collarbones where my jacket slips open.
When the SUV descends into the underground parking garage of the compound, the heavy steel security doors grind shut behind us, locking out the world.
The vehicle stops. I don't wait for Fabio to open my door.
I shove it open and step out, carrying her effortlessly—her body still locked against mine, her feet never touching the concrete.
The basement level is brightly lit, concrete and steel, reeking of exhaust and the faint scent of gun oil.
Santi is waiting at the private elevator.
My brother is a six-foot-five wall of muscle and quiet, calculated paranoia.
He is the watcher, the one who caught every threat from the shadows with a patient, lethal demeanor.
He stands with his arms crossed, his dark eyes snapping from the blood on my shirt to the completely numb bundle in my arms.
Santi doesn't move to press the call button. He steps into my path, his massive chest blocking the doors.
"Civilian?" Santi asks. His voice is a sparse, deliberate rasp.
"Mine," I say. The word reverberates through the concrete garage. It isn't a clarification; it's a threat. Challenge me on this, and see what happens.
Santi's jaw ticks. He looks at Sienna. She shrinks back, hiding her face against the crook of my neck. The soft exhalation of her breath against my collarbone sends a vicious spike of territorial rage through my blood. No one looks at her. Not even my own blood.
Santi reads the violence in my eyes. He steps aside and punches the elevator button. The doors slide open. "Clearing the fourth floor," he mutters into the comms strapped to his wrist.
I step into the elevator, the doors closing to seal us in the mirrored box.
Sienna finally opens her eyes, catching our reflection.
She looks so incredibly small against me.
I am a massive, shadowed disaster of a man, clad in bespoke wool and dried blood.
She is vibrant, young, and entirely ruined for anyone else but me.
"Where are you taking me?" she whispers to the mirror.
"Home."