Chapter 2 #2
The elevator chimes at the fourth floor.
The doors open directly into my private suite—a space keyed only to my biometrics and Santi's override.
The glass is reinforced ballistic polymer, rated for high-caliber rounds.
To the world, it's a view of Lake Michigan and the glittering sprawl of the Gold Coast below.
To me, it's a kill-zone with a 360-degree sightline.
Stark, brutalist architecture—slate gray stone, black leather, cold steel. A war room disguised as a penthouse.
It suddenly feels entirely inadequate for her. It's too cold. Too hard.
I walk past the massive living area and straight into my bedroom. I set her down on the edge of the king-sized mattress. The mattress is firm, wrapped in dark gray sheets. She sinks into it, her knees knocking together, her hands still clutching my suit jacket shut over her chest.
I take a step back, giving her three feet of oxygen. It costs me immense physical effort not to reach out and touch her again. My hands feel empty. They twitch at my sides.
"Don't move," I tell her.
I pull the encrypted phone from my pocket and hit a speed dial. The line connects instantly to the ground-floor security desk. "Nico."
"Boss," my cousin answers, the sound of a knife sharpening echoing in the background.
"I need things. Now," I bark, the adrenaline of the night bleeding into my tone.
It comes out harsher than I intend. "Peonies.
The exact shade of pink she brought to the restaurant.
I want them here. I want a silk robe, size small.
Black or deep red. And hand cream. The expensive shit.
Call a concierge, break into a boutique, I don't give a fuck how you get it. You have twenty minutes."
Sienna flinches violently at the raw aggression in my voice. She curls her legs up onto the bed, making herself as small as possible, trying to disappear into the dark bedding.
The sight of her cowering from me acts like a bucket of ice water over my rabid brain. I snap the phone shut, tossing it onto the glass nightstand. I take a deep, controlled breath, forcing the violent mob boss down and locking him in a cage.
I drop to one knee in front of her. I am still a foot taller than her, even kneeling, but it removes the looming threat of my height.
"Sienna," I say softly. The contrast in my voice makes her eyes snap to mine. "Look at me."
She shakes her head, her lower lip unsteady. "You're insane. You are all insane. You tortured those men in the private dining room—"
"I did," I confirm smoothly. There is no point in lying to her.
She is inside the inner sanctum now. She will see the blood.
She will know the monsters. "He was a Bellanti soldier.
He was part of a syndicate that slaughtered my family twenty years ago.
He had information I needed, so I extracted it.
I am a violent man, Sienna. But I will never, under any circumstances, bring that violence to you. Do you understand me?"
She lets out a wet, incredulous laugh. "You kidnapped me! You dragged me out of my life and locked me in a—a compound! That is violence!"
"That is preservation," I counter, my voice dropping an octave, thickening with a dark, obsessive certainty.
I reach out, ignoring her flinch, and wrap my hands around her bare calves.
Her skin is freezing. I chafe my large, hot palms up and down her lower legs, trying to force the circulation back into her shocked system.
"You walked into a war zone. You saw the faces of my enemies and the faces of my men.
The Bellantis would have found you by sunrise.
They would have peeled your skin off to find out what you heard. "
She chokes on a sob, her head falling forward. The copper curls spill over her face, hiding her tears.
"I am the only thing in this city that can keep you breathing," I tell her, sliding my hands up to cup her knees. "And I have decided that you are going to keep breathing. Here. With me."
"I don't even know your name," she whispers to the space between my hands.
"Dominic," I say. "Dominic Costa."
She inhales sharply. Even civilians in Chicago know the name Costa now. We've spent the last year establishing our legitimate fronts, buying up the Riverwalk, quietly choking out the old-money syndicates.
A sharp rap on the heavy bedroom door breaks the tension. Sienna jumps.
"Leave it," I call out.
The door cracks open, and Nico slides a massive, matte-black shopping bag inside before silently clicking the door shut. He made it in fourteen minutes. I'll make sure his cut from the south side operation reflects the efficiency.
I stand up, my joints popping. I walk to the bag and pull out the contents. A heavy crystal vase overflowing with lush, aggressively pink peonies. A black silk robe wrapped in tissue paper. A frosted glass jar of French hand cream.
I set the flowers on the nightstand right beside her. The cloying, sweet scent immediately cuts through the sterile air of the room, fighting the lingering smell of copper on my clothes. Sienna stares at the flowers as if they are a hallucination.
"Stand up," I tell her.
She hesitates, looking up at me with wide, terrified eyes. I offer my hand. I keep my palm open, steady, waiting.
Slowly, agonizingly, she uncurls her fingers from my suit jacket. She places her small, icy hand in mine. The moment her skin meets my palm, a jolt of pure, unadulterated possession slams through my spine. I close my fingers over hers, completely engulfing her hand, and pull her gently to her feet.
"The bathroom is through there," I gesture to the frosted glass doors to the left. "Take off that dress. Put this on." I hand her the folded black silk.
"Are you..." she swallows, her throat clicking. "Are you going to hurt me?"
I step directly into her space. The tips of her shoes touch my leather oxfords. I am so close I can feel the erratic heat radiating off her skin. I lift my free hand, tracing the backs of my knuckles down the soft, pale curve of her cheek. She shivers, her eyes fluttering shut at the contact.
"I am going to keep you," I murmur, my voice a dark, vibrating hum that I feel in my own chest. "Go."
She takes the silk and practically runs into the bathroom, locking the door behind her. The click of the lock makes me smirk. As if a hollow core door lock could keep me out if I wanted in. But I will give her the illusion of control for tonight.
I strip off my ruined dress shirt, tossing it into a corner.
I unbuckle my shoulder holster, laying the heavy Glock on the dresser.
I need a shower. I need to wash the blood of my enemies off my skin before I touch her again.
But I can't leave the room. I can't let her out of my sight, even through a frosted glass door.
I sit in the leather armchair in the corner of the room, leaning forward, resting my elbows on my knees. I listen to the sound of the water running in the sink. I listen to her muffled, ragged breathing.
Every variable I usually track has been discarded. There is only one architecture left in my skull, and she is in the next room trying to lock me out with a two-dollar bolt.
Twenty years. I traded my youth, my peace, and my own sister's safety to build a weapon sharp enough to cut the Bellantis down.
I arranged Lucia's marriage to the Butcher of the West to secure an alliance.
I used my own flesh and blood as a pawn on a chessboard.
The guilt of that has eaten me alive from the inside out, turning my heart into a black, necrotic stone.
I swore I would never let another human being get close enough to me to become leverage. I swore I would die in this war.
And then she walked through a heavy oak door holding a vase of flowers, and the stone cracked.
The bathroom door unlocks.
Sienna steps out. The black silk robe drapes over her small frame, the hem pooling around her calves.
She tied the sash in a tight, defensive knot at her waist. Her skin is scrubbed clean, flushed pink from the hot water.
Her copper curls are damp at the ends, clinging to her neck.
She looks like a fragile porcelain doll wrapped in shadow.
She sees me sitting in the chair, bare-chested, covered in a map of faded knife scars and bullet grazes that document two decades of violence.
Her eyes widen, tracking the heavy slabs of muscle across my chest, the dark hair trailing down my stomach, disappearing into the waistband of my tailored slacks.
She swallows visibly, her pulse hammering at the base of her throat.
"Come here," I command.
She freezes. Every instinct in her body is screaming at her to run. But there is nowhere to run. She takes a tentative step forward, her bare feet sinking into the plush rug. She crosses the room, stopping an arm's length away from my chair.
I reach over to the nightstand and pick up the frosted glass jar of hand cream. I unscrew the lid. The scent of shea butter and lavender fills the space between us.
"Give me your hands," I say.
She slowly extends her arms. Her hands are locked in a painful, nervous cramp.
I take her right hand in my left, turning her palm up.
The skin is ravaged. Tiny, jagged scratches from rose thorns crisscross her delicate wrists.
Dirt is permanently embedded in the callouses at the base of her fingers.
She labors. She bleeds for a few dollars an hour in a shop that likely barely covers her rent.
The thought of her struggling, of her bleeding for anyone or anything, sends a wave of dark, violent protectiveness crashing over my sanity.
I dig my fingers into the cream, the scent of lavender filling the air between us.
I take her wrist, my fingers circling the bone like a shackle, and drag her hand down until it's pinned against the hard, corded muscle of my thigh.
She gasps, her knuckles brushing the expensive wool of my slacks and the scorching heat radiating from my skin beneath.
I am mapping her. Learning the geography of her hands the way I learn the layout of any building I intend to occupy permanently.
Every callous, every thorn-scar, every chapped knuckle—I drag my thumbs across all of it, slow and deliberate, the cream letting me move without friction, without mercy.
The sound of skin on skin is a quiet, unhurried rhythm in the dark room.
I'm claiming the nerves beneath her skin.
"I'm sorry," she whispers, trying to pull back. "My hands are ugly."
"Do not insult what is mine," I growl softly.
I watch her face as I work. The terror is slowly bleeding out of her eyes, replaced by a heavy, dazed confusion.
The repetitive, soothing motion of my thumbs, the sheer heat radiating off my body—it is dismantling her panic one careful degree at a time.
Her breathing slows. Her eyelids flutter, heavy and drooping.
"You're exhausting," she mumbles, the adrenaline crash finally hitting her system like a freight train.
"I know," I say smoothly. I switch hands, taking her left hand, applying more cream. I work it into her cuticles, my thumbs dragging down the length of her slender fingers.
She sways on her feet, her knees buckling slightly.
I drop the jar. I catch her by the waist, pulling her forward. She collapses into my lap, her legs tangling with mine, her head dropping heavily onto my bare shoulder. The black silk of the robe slides open slightly, exposing the pale curve of her thigh against my dark slacks.
She doesn't fight me this time. Her body has simply given up. The shock, the fear, the sensory overload of being dragged into a mafia stronghold—it has drained her battery to zero.
I wrap my arms around her, securing her against my chest. Her breath ghosts over my collarbone, warm and steady. I press my lips into the crown of her hair, inhaling the scent of her.
"Sleep," I murmur against her scalp.
"Can't," she whispers, her voice slurred. "I have to... the peonies..."
I look at the flowers on the nightstand, then back down at her, her copper curls fanned across my bare chest.
"Vincenzo is scrubbing your records right now," I tell her, my voice a low, private rumble meant only for this room.
"Your lease. Your accounts. Your name in every city database that has it.
If they've had eyes on L'Ombra long enough to photograph your van, they already have your plates—which means this is a race, not a guarantee.
But I have good men, and I have a head start.
" I pull her tighter against me, my hand flattening against the small of her back.
"You aren't going back to the shop because I won't let them use it to find you. That's the only reason."
She doesn't argue. She simply lets out a long, shuddering sigh, her body going completely limp against me.
I sit there in the dim lighting of the bedroom, holding the woman who just became the greatest vulnerability I have ever possessed.
The Bellantis have eyes everywhere. They have spent a year reverse-engineering every fragmented routing header Lucia left them, and they are getting closer.
They know our businesses. They know our aliases.
If they find out about her, they will strike at her to break me.
I run my hand down the length of her silk-covered spine, pulling her tighter against my body until there is no air left between us.
Let them try. Let the syndicates plot. Let the entire city of Chicago burn to ash. I have spent my entire life destroying myself to build an empire.
Now, I have a queen to put on the throne. And I will slaughter anyone who tries to take her crown.