Chapter 16 Dominic
Chapter sixteen
Dominic
“Keep him conscious. I don’t care if you have to pour whiskey down his throat.”
“Might not make it to tomorrow, Capo,” Matteo says matter-of-factly.
My grip tightens around the phone. He can’t just die. Not when he hasn’t given us anything useful. The bastard still insists he has told us everything he knows. He’s either the world’s best liar or he’s covering for someone worth dying for.
I drag a hand down my face. “I’m on my way.” I hang up immediately, grabbing my jacket from the chair.
Halfway down the hall, Isabella comes out of nowhere, rushing toward me. She doesn’t even slow down before shoving her phone into my chest. “Did you do this?”
Her hair spills around her face, sticking to her sweat-dampened skin, and for just one fucking second, I almost forget I don’t have the time for distractions.
My eyes scan through the headline.
INTERNATIONAL VOGUE MODEL QUITS MODELING CAREER.
The bitch is lucky I let her live.
“Did you?” She presses further.
I don’t answer.
Her throat works as she swallows. “You didn’t have to,” she whispers. “You just ruined a career she spent years building…in what, one night?”
It would’ve been easier if she hated me for it.
Easier to dismiss. But my little reckless wife looks grateful.
Even as she tries to hide it behind moral outrage, the same look had softened her eyes the night I’d killed those men.
She’s furious and oddly relieved at the same time. It’s messy and complicated.
I don’t do complicated. The truth is simple. I’d do it again. No one touches what’s mine, literally or figuratively, and goes scot-free. She should know that by now.
“You know what? Forget it.” She shakes her head. “Just…can I go to the promenade? I-I really need that right now.”
A part of me wants to tell her no, simply because I can. But the desperation in her voice holds me back.
“Stay close to the men,” I say. “Don’t wander.”
Relief flashes across her eyes. She nods, tucks her phone away, and turns on bare feet like a child who just got permission to stay past their curfew.
***
I don’t like wrestling men who are already halfway gone.
It makes the work sentimental, and that’s one thing I have no patience for.
Still, Benny’s silence has been a rot in my plans.
If he won’t tell me, I will trace the people who warmed his bed, drank with him, passed time over cards, or had any interactions with him.
I will map every comfortable habit he had and tear it apart until the truth comes out.
“Wake up, Benito.” Crouching down in front of him, I light up a cigar and blow smoke into his face.
He snorts, a wet, useless sound that pisses me off as he speaks hoarsely. “I already told you everything I know.”
“You told me lies.”
Benny’s head turns toward the light. His mouth moves around words that don’t come out. “Just kill me already,” he rasps. “Save yourself the trouble.”
“Killing you is a mercy you don’t deserve.”
A wheezing laugh leaves his lips. “Mercy comes in different forms, Dominic.”
“Then I’ll be creative,” I smirk. He blinks, and I watch how his bloodied lips lift very faintly in a smirk before he speaks again, barely a whisper this time.
“Even the devil has a weakness.” A violent cough wracks through his chest, blood hitting the ground as his body convulses. Eventually, a ragged exhale escapes from him before his head drops to the side.
Matteo moves in, checks for a pulse, and curses under his breath. “He’s gone.”
I stub the cigar under my feet, already thinking of the next action. “Have you gotten a hold of his contacts yet?”
Matteo’s phone vibrates against the table before he can answer. He glances down, and whatever shows on the screen drains the color from his face.
“What?”
“Capo… there’s been—” He swallows, hard enough that the motion in his throat is clearly visible. “It’s your wife. She’s been attacked.”
For a second, the room spins. I’m not a man who loses balance, but I grip the edge of the table to steady myself.
Instinctively, I pull out my phone and check the tracker app I’d planted in her phone.
The beacon shows a flat line. “She’s not in motion,” I snap, already bolting for the door. “If she’s not moving, she’s pinned.”
My hands grip the steering wheel all the way there, to the location the tracker is showing.
When we reach the street, the stench of burnt rubber and blood hits me first. The car is half on the curb, one tire shredded flat, and the hood dented from where it was hit.
Two of my men lie where they fell, faces pale, and covered in their own blood.
There’s no other body. Whoever did this left clean. So, this is no ordinary accident.
“Che cazzo è successo qui (What the fuck happened here)?” I snarl, shoving the ruined door open.
“She’s not here,” Matteo says, voice tight, gun already out.
I need to find her. I’ll burn this fucking city to the ground if she’s gone—
“Capo!” Matteo shouts, pointing to the left.
She staggers from an alley, her hand braced against the brick, and her body trembling. Her face twists when she sees me, like she’s seconds from falling apart. And before I can even breathe, I’m moving toward her, blind to everything else.
I don’t hear the second set of footsteps until Matteo screams.
“Capo! Down!”
The gunshot rings in my ears, and for half a second, I think I’ve been shot. But then Bella jerks forward with a gut-wrenching scream. My hands catch her just before she hits the pavement, blood coating my palm.
Shit. The bastard redirected his aim at her last minute.
“Fuck—no, no—” The words rip out of me as my hand presses down on the wound.
I whip my head around, ready to tear the bastard apart, but Matteo’s already dropped him with a shot to the skull. More men spill out from their hiding spots. Some burst out from behind a rusted dumpster by a curb, while others from a closed street store, guns already raised.
My body shields hers as I pull her back into the alley. She groans in pain, collapsing against the wall. “I-I can’t—” she manages to force out between shallow breaths.
Crouching down beside her, I take off my shirt, fold it tight, press the fabric into the wound…and guide her trembling hand over it. “Don’t let go.”
I squeeze her hand once, then push back on my feet.
Panic claws against my chest, driving me back into the open.
Every pull of my trigger is wild with desperation…
fueled by the thought of her bleeding against the wall.
There’s no time for anything else, except to get her out of here as soon as possible.
The last bastard goes down with a shot to his head.
My feet move rapidly back toward the alley.
Scooping her in my arms, I realize how hot her body feels.
A strangled cry escapes from her lips as she wraps one arm around my neck and presses her face into my shoulders, while her other hand grips the makeshift bandage.
Guilt creeps up my neck, choking me. She’s hurt because of me. She was fucking shot because of me. “Matteo, call the doctor. Now! I want the footage from every camera in twenty blocks forwarded to my tablet. Find out who fucking did this.”
There’s no time for me to be anything but furious and functional.
Matteo holds the car door, and I lower her as gently as I can manage into the back seat, then move to the driver’s seat.
My grip on the wheel is so tight my knuckles ache, but I don’t loosen it.
Not until she’s home. Not until she’s safe.
***
“Stay with me, Isabella.” Her eyes flutter open and shut. “Where’s the fucking doctor?” The words are forced through my clenched teeth as I carry her to my bedroom.
“He’s out of the state right now. He’s sending someone else, but it might take a while,” Matteo replies.
“You find someone else,” I growl.
The blood on the cloth used to wrap her wound warns me we don’t have much time. I move her to the bathroom, placing her on the large counter space.
“A-am I going to die?” Her grunts of pain grow heavier with each word she lets out. And I know she’s about to feel like her insides are ripping apart since she’s never been shot. Fuck!
With an increased sense of urgency, I roughly grab all the necessary items and set them down on the cabinet beside her, then, without hesitation, move to wash my hands. When I return to her, an odd feeling constricts my throat. Fear.
I’ve stitched up men before. Pulled bullets out of my own body, but she’s not a soldier. She’s not a man who’s spent his life being torn open. She doesn’t belong bleeding in my bathroom.
Still, I move, parting her thighs to stand in between them. The ketamine ampoule snaps in my fingers, pieces of glass pricking my skin. It’s a heavy dissociative, strong enough to pull her mind away from the pain, but I know it'll leave her hazy and disconnected.
“You’re insane,” she gasps, eyes widening. “You can’t…you’re not a doc—”
“Not now, Bella. I’d rather take my chances than watch you die.”
Her hand stays pressed against the wound as I draw the sedative into the syringe.
I keep my fingers firm against her arm to keep her from moving, then sink the needle deep into the muscle of her upper arm.
She flinches, body stiffening. “Ooh—shit,” she gasps. “I… I’m sorry. I hate needles.”
“This will make you feel better,” is all I say as my eyes fall to her torso. I wait a few seconds, watching her pupils dilate as the drug hits her system and dulls her edge. “Let me see it.”
She hesitates, teeth clenched, before easing her hand away.
Every movement makes her grunt in pain. Without wasting time, I peel the blood-soaked cloth back gently and see the wound clearly for the first time.
It’s in the upper curve of her right shoulder, just below her collarbone, away from anything vital, but there’s no exit wound—the bullet is still lodged in.