Chapter 8 Dominic #2
They leave within fifteen minutes. Fabio takes the armored SUV with Enzo and his crew, heading west toward the Ashland warehouse line. Santi takes the second vehicle and his team south toward the waterfront docks. The subterranean garage rumbles with the engines, then falls silent.
I am alone in the war room.
I sit at the head of the mahogany table, the comms unit open in front of me, both channels live.
The surveillance monitors glow with the blue-white static of street cameras.
I pour two fingers of bourbon from the decanter on the sideboard, but I don't drink it.
I just hold the glass, letting it anchor my hands.
The first update comes from Santi. Forty minutes in.
"Docks are dark. Four exterior guards. Moving in."
His voice is flat, clinical. I hear nothing for six minutes. Then:
"Perimeter secured. Two guards down. Two surrendered. Port access is ours. Holding the loading bays."
Clean. Surgical. Exactly the way Santi operates—minimum force, maximum result. He reclaimed the Bellanti's port access point without a single shot echoing across the waterfront.
"Hold position," I say into the comms. "No one leaves until I confirm Fabio is clear."
"Copy."
Fabio's channel is louder. I hear the crunch of boots on frozen asphalt, the muffled bark of commands. The Ashland warehouse line is a harder target—more men, more infrastructure, more ways for things to go wrong.
Fabio's voice crackles through the speaker, tight with adrenaline. "Eyes on the hub. Six guards on the loading docks. Two more on the east flank. We're breaching in thirty seconds."
I lean forward, my knuckles white on the edge of the table.
The next two minutes are a staccato burst of suppressed gunfire and shouted commands transmitted through Fabio's open mic.
I hear Enzo calling that the east flank is clear.
I hear the concussive thud of a breaching charge on the side door.
I hear Fabio's savage, furious roar as his team pours into the warehouse.
Then I hear something that stops my blood cold.
A sharp, agonized scream. Not Fabio. One of his men.
"Man down!" Fabio's voice, stripped raw with fury. "They had a second team inside—Loss! Loss! Enzo, cover the north exit!"
My hand tightens on the comms unit. Every instinct in my body screams at me to move, to get in a vehicle and drive to my brother. I force myself to stay seated. Sienna is upstairs. I made my choice.
The firefight lasts another ninety seconds. It feels like ninety years.
Then Fabio's voice, breathing hard, ragged: "Clear. Hub is clear."
"Casualties," I demand.
A beat of silence. When Fabio speaks again, the volatility in his voice has been replaced by something worse—a thick, devastated fury that I recognize because I have worn it myself.
"Two. Vittorio and Sal. They caught them in the crossfire near the office. Vittorio took one in the throat. Sal took two in the chest." A sharp, shuddering breath. "They're gone, Dom."
I close my eyes. Vittorio Ferretti and Salvatore Bianchi. Cousins from the old neighborhood. They followed us from Pine Valley, leaving their families behind just to fight our war.
"Rig the building," I say, my voice carved from granite. "Burn it all. The crates, the cash pallets, the walls. Leave nothing standing."
"Already pouring the gasoline," Fabio says, and I hear the savage edge return to his voice—the rage crystallizing into action, the grief converting to fuel. This is how Fabio survives. He doesn't mourn. He destroys.
I sit in the war room, listening to the distant, tinny roar of the ignition through Fabio's open mic. I imagine the flames consuming the Bellanti money, the drugs, the infrastructure. A multi-million dollar blow. It will start a street war we aren't fully prepared to fight.
I don't care. Let them come.
Santi's voice comes through the second channel, calm and measured: "I can see the glow from the waterfront. Ashland is burning."
"Hold your position until Fabio's team clears the area," I say. "Then pull back. Both teams to the safe house on Halsted. No one comes back to the brownstone tonight."
"Copy," Santi says.
"Copy," Fabio echoes, his voice hoarse.
I kill the comms and sit in the silence of the war room for a long time. The bourbon is warm in my hand, untouched. Two men dead. Two families I will have to face. Two more names carved into the ledger of debt I carry.
But the docks are ours. And the Ashland hub is ash.
I will burn every brick in Chicago to the bedrock before I let them touch a single hair on her head.
The adrenaline fades into a heavy, bone-deep exhaustion.
I climb the steel-reinforced staircase slowly, leaving the war room's blue glow behind me.
The brownstone is dark and quiet. I check my hands.
The knuckles are clean—I didn't throw a single punch tonight.
The violence was my brothers'. The command was mine.
I take the stairs to the private suite slowly. I don't know what I am walking into. I don't know if any of this will mean anything to her, or if it just proves I am the monster she fears.
I unlock the heavy oak door and step inside.
The main bedroom is dark, save for the ambient glow of the city lights bleeding through the massive windows. The bed is empty. The black duvet is pushed back.
Panic, cold and sharp, spikes in my chest. "Sienna."
"I'm here."
Her voice comes from the attached master bathroom.
I walk toward the open door. The warm yellow light spills over the marble floor.
She is sitting on the edge of the massive sunken tub, still wearing the black silk robe I gave her.
Her copper hair is a wild, messy halo around her pale face. Her eyes are wide, taking me in.
She sees the tension radiating from my shoulders.
She sees the exhaustion carved into the lines of my face.
But there is no soot on my jaw. No blood drying in the cracks of my skin.
I did not leave this building. I sent my brothers into the fire and stayed behind to guard the woman sleeping in my bed.
She doesn't scream. She doesn't flinch.
"You didn't go," she says quietly. It is not a question.
"No."
"But something happened."
I lean against the doorframe. The last three hours press down on my shoulders like wet concrete. "I sent Fabio and Santi. Two separate operations. The Bellanti docks and their distribution hub on the Ashland warehouse line."
Her amber-hazel eyes search my face. "Why didn't you go?"
The answer is so simple it terrifies me. "Because you are here."
Sienna's breath catches. She stares at me for a long beat, processing what I've just admitted.
A man who has spent twenty years leading from the front, who has never once delegated the violence he considers his personal responsibility—that man sat in a basement and listened to his brothers fight because he could not bring himself to leave her alone in the dark.
She stands up, her bare feet silent on the heated tile, and walks toward me. She stops a foot away, her head tilted back to look up at me. Her hand comes up slowly, and she presses her palm flat against my chest, right over the strong, steady beat of my heart.
"What happened?" she asks, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Santi took the docks. Clean. Surgical." I pause, and the next words taste like ash. "Fabio hit the warehouse. He lost two men."
Her hand presses harder against my chest, as if she can feel the grief vibrating beneath my ribs. "I'm sorry."
"They were good men. They followed us from Pine Valley.
" I reach up and cover her hand with mine, pressing it tighter against my sternum.
"I burned their central distribution hub to the ground tonight.
I destroyed tens of millions of dollars of their infrastructure.
I put a target on my own back that will drag this war into the light of day months before I am ready.
And I lost two soldiers who trusted me with their lives. "
I look down at her, at the copper curls framing her pale face, at the wide amber-hazel eyes that hold no judgment—only a raw, searching attention that strips me to the marrow.
"I did all of it because they took the only thing in this world that made you smile before I dragged you into my hell," I tell her, my voice thick and rough with the truth I've spent hours avoiding.
"I cannot buy back your grandmother's memory.
I am a blunt instrument, Sienna. I only know how to destroy threats and acquire assets.
I tried to treat you like an asset to be managed.
I was wrong. So I sent my brothers to burn their world down. "
Sienna lets out a fractured, broken breath. The wall she built between us hours ago shatters, leaving only the raw, exposed nerves of a woman who realizes just how deeply, terrifyingly obsessed I am with her.
Her small hands come up, framing my jaw. "You are insane," she whispers, her voice thin.
"Only for you," I reply, my hands coming up to grip her waist. "I will burn this entire fucking city to keep you warm, Sienna. Tell me you understand that."
"I understand," she breathes, and then she pulls my mouth down to hers.
The kiss is not like the desperate, angry claiming from earlier.
This is a collision. This is the absolute collapse of my remaining restraint.
I groan, a deep, guttural sound in the back of my throat, as her tongue sweeps against mine.
She tastes like mint and the sweet, dark warmth of sleep.
My hands slide up from her waist, gripping the lapels of the black robe, and I shove the silk off her shoulders.
It pools at her feet, leaving her naked, flushed, and perfectly soft against the harsh lines of my suit.