Dom
I slam my glass down on the desk, watching amber liquid splash over the rim. The city lights blur beyond my window. Fuck!
Olivia Ricci. Even her name in my thoughts feels like a betrayal.
Without that badge, who are you? You’re nobody.
My cruel words echo back. I shouldn't have said that, but damn it, she pushed me there. Acting like what's between us is just convenient friction between sheets.
I can’t believe she walked out. She didn’t even look back. It took every ounce of will power not to follow her.
Not to stop her, but to protect her.
Let her go, I told myself, but I couldn’t.
Instead, I've stationed men in the building across from hers, another team rotating surveillance in parked cars.
Overkill? Maybe.
But Blackwood is still out there, and he's not the type to leave loose ends.
Negative energy courses through me. I pace my office like a caged animal, ready to tear the head of anyone who approaches.
I’ve spent my life knowing my purpose, my destiny. Vitale family business. La Corona. Family. I’m tied to this life.
But for the first time, I feel shackled. What would it mean to choose her? To choose something else?
My security feed blinks on my laptop. A car pulling up outside my building. Not hers. God, why doesn’t she see the danger she’s in?
Olivia, stubborn, righteous Olivia, is walking straight into Blackwood’s web without backup.
I check my watch, the third time in five minutes, as Mario's text comes through. Still at home. No visitors. Blinds closed.
Relief and frustration war inside me. At least she's alive, but the woman's too stubborn for her own good. She should be here, where I can protect her, not holed up in that apartment with paper-thin walls and locks a child could pick.
The memory of finding her crumpled form that night sends a chill through me. If I'd been five minutes later...
I reach for my keys, then stop myself. What would I even say? "Sorry I insulted your entire identity, now please come back to my safehouse"?
No. I need to give her space. But space doesn't mean abandonment.
I send another text to Mario: Double the watch tonight. And if anyone approaches her, I want to know immediately.
Somehow I sleep, and the next morning I drive downtown to the office and throw myself into work.
The dock operations need my attention, but the numbers blur together.
Olivia doesn’t ever stop haunting me. I can’t stop seeing her face when Roman mentioned her father.
Fucking hell. Didn’t I tell them not to tell her? What was he thinking? I doubt it was a slip. Roman doesn’t make slips. No, he had a reason for saying what he did. And in that moment, he shattered her world.
Part of me understands her retreat. Finding out her father wasn’t the man she thought he was is a special kind of betrayal. Her father was her hero, the reason she wears that badge. Now she's questioning everything.
The other part of me wants to shake her until she sees what's right in front of her. The world isn't split into saints and sinners. We're all just people making choices with the hands we're dealt.
"You need to sign these," my assistant says, sliding contracts across my desk.
I scrawl my signature without reading. She raises an eyebrow but knows better than to question me today.
My phone vibrates. Not her, I tell myself to avoid getting my hopes up. After all, she thinks I'm beneath her, except when she’s warming my sheets.
No. That's not fair. She never said that.
What she said was there's nothing between us but sex. And that's the real knife twist, because for the first time in my life, I want more from a woman.
The door to my office swings open without warning. Roman strides in like he owns the place, his presence filling the room with that quiet intensity that makes him Marco's perfect enforcer.
"You look like shit," he says, closing the door behind him.
I don't bother with pleasantries. "What do you want, Roman?"
He makes himself comfortable, pouring two fingers of my scotch and then taking a seat in front of my desk. "I want to know if you're planning to get us all killed over an FBI agent."
Fucker. "I'm handling it."
"Are you?" Roman's voice drops lower. "Because from what I saw yesterday, you look like a man who can't decide if he wants to fuck her or save her. And that kind of confusion gets people dead."
I rise from my chair, anger flaring. "Watch yourself."
"No, you watch yourself, Dom." He doesn't back down an inch. "This isn't some movie where the cop falls for the criminal and they ride off into the sunset. She's FBI. You're La Corona. Those facts don't change because you've developed feelings for her."
"I don't have—"
"Save it." Roman cuts me off with a sharp gesture. "I've known you since you were a kid. I've never seen you like this over a woman."
He acts like he’s my elder. Granted he’s over a decade older, but he’s no father figure.
“And it’s clear she has no room in her life for anyone less than Prince Charming.”
“You totally fucked her up, Roman. Why would you do that?”
He leans forward. “To see if she could reciprocate what you seem to feel for her. She can’t. Now you know. What are you going to do about it?”
The fight drains out of me as quickly as it came. I sink back into my chair. "What do you want me to say? That I'm compromised? Fine. I am."
Roman's expression softens slightly. "The others are worried. Marco especially. We're all exposed here."
"I know." And I do. Every minute I spend thinking about Olivia is a minute I'm not protecting my family. "But she's the key to Blackwood. And I can't just..."
"Let her go?" Roman finishes for me.
I meet his gaze, not bothering to hide the truth anymore. "No. I can't. But you’re one to lecture me. You fell for the woman you were supposed to keep in line, possibly kill if she continued to work with Blackwood."
Roman's expression hardens. "Isabella was different. For one, she was manipulated. Two, she’s the daughter of a don. You know as well as I do that it’s unlikely La Corona world have ordered her murder. Marrying her was a strategic decision approved by La Corona."
"Strategic," I repeat with a bitter laugh. "Is that what you called it when you fucked her—“
“Watch yourself, Dom.” A warning flickers in his eyes.
“Or what? You forget yourself, Roman. There is a hierarchy here. La Corona respects and values you as Marco’s enforcer, but you’re no don.”
"You're deflecting," he says, clearly not concerned that he’s disrespecting me. "Isabella isn't actively investigating us. She isn't sworn to uphold laws we break daily. Your FBI agent? She is."
The words "your FBI agent" send a shock of pain in my chest. She isn’t mine, even though I wish she was.
"How can you trust her, Dom?" Roman presses. "Really trust her? She's spent years building a case against you. How can we know she’s not pretending to help us when in fact she’s working for Blackwood? You know he’s all about shit like that."
I can’t deny he has a point and the idea that Olivia could be duping me doesn’t sit well.
"I don't know," I admit finally. "But she could have turned me in a dozen times by now. She hasn't."
"Yet," Roman adds quietly.
“It could work the other way,” I say, playing devil's advocate. “Blackwood could be manipulating her just like Isabella was manipulated?"
"Then help her," Roman says. "But don't pretend this is just about justice. Don't pretend your dick isn't doing half your thinking."
Anger flares again. "You think that's all this is?"
"I think," Roman says carefully, "that you need to decide what matters more. Her or La Corona. Because the moment might come when you can't protect both."
I hold Roman's gaze, letting his warning settle between us. The truth is, he's right to question me. I've never let a woman get under my skin like this. Never allowed anyone to become a liability. That was a lesson my father taught me well.
"I know what you're thinking. That I've lost my edge.”
Roman doesn't deny it. "The others are concerned."
"They should be," I admit, surprising him. "This isn't a clean situation. But I need you to understand something. I haven't forgotten who I am or what I owe La Corona."
He purses his lips in skepticism.
"Olivia is the key to bringing down Blackwood," I continue. "Whatever's between us doesn't change that. If someone's manipulating our families from inside the FBI, that's a threat to all of us."
"And if she turns on you?" Roman asks. "On us?"
"Then I'll handle it. Like I've handled every other threat to our family." I hope he can’t see how it would be impossible for me to kill Olivia. “Look, I get it. But right now, Blackwood needs to pay for what he did to Rocco.”
Something shifts in his expression at the mention of Rocco. He has a daughter. He understands.
"Getting justice Rocco is non-negotiable and I’ll bet my right nut that Luca and Elena agree. After that... whatever happens to me doesn't matter."
Roman studies me for a long moment.
"La Corona comes first," I say simply. "It always has. But Blackwood needs to pay for what he's done, and Olivia's our best shot at making that happen."
He drains his glass, setting it down on my desk. "Then I'll help you. But Dom—" he pauses, making sure I'm listening "—don't fool yourself into thinking there's a happy ending here. Not for you and her."
I nod once. "I stopped believing in happy endings a long time ago."