Chapter 2 - The Mask Slips in the Shadows
Heavy tactical footsteps echoed down the grand corridor. Dominic held up a single hand without looking back, and four of his best armed enforcers halted instantly at the doorway.
Leo, his second-in-command, peered into the drawing room. His eyes went wide. He had seen back-alley executions and cartel wars, but seeing the proud heiress of the West Side Syndicate reduced to a sobbing mess at the feet of Dominic’s quiet wife rendered him utterly speechless.
“Boss…” Leo breathed, his hand hovering over his sidearm. “What do we do?”
“Take her,” Dominic commanded, his voice cold and flat. “Put a hood over her head. Take her down to sub-level two. Get our private physician to patch her up enough so she doesn’t bleed out. Nobody touches her until I come down.”
“Understood,” Leo said. Two large men entered, grabbed Vivien by the underarms, and dragged her across the Persian rug. Vivien offered no fight. She merely kept her eyes locked in horror on Nora until the heavy oak doors shut behind them.
The room fell dead silent. The only sound was the patter of rain against the shattered bay window and the faint clink of ice in Nora’s glass.
Dominic stepped forward, his leather boots crunching against broken crystal. He stopped less than a foot from her. He towered over her, his imposing frame usually enough to intimidate hardened capos. Nora didn’t even blink. She met his intense dark eyes with a serene, unyielding stare.
“Frankie didn’t get taken down by Vivien,” Dominic stated, his eyes narrowing. “Frankie is two hundred and ten pounds of muscle. He was trained by Israeli special forces. The bruise on his jaw was a precision strike to the vagus nerve.”
Nora took a sip of Scotch. “He hesitated when Vivien’s men drew down on him at the side entrance. Hesitation gets people killed, Dominic. I stepped in, put Frankie down before he caught a bullet in the throat, disarmed Vivien’s lead shooter, and broke the second man’s knee before kicking them back out into the driveway.”
Dominic’s pulse pounded against his temples. “And where are those two shooters now?”
“In the trunk of their own Mercedes at the bottom of the ravine behind your property,” Nora replied effortlessly. “The keys are on the entryway console.”
Dominic grabbed her wrist. He didn’t squeeze hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to command absolute attention. He turned her hand over, examining the split skin across her knuckles, the swollen tissue, and the unmistakable calluses along the base of her index finger and thumb.
“These aren't the hands of an art restorer,” Dominic growled. “These are the hands of someone who has fired tens of thousands of rounds and broken dozens of bones. Who put you in my house, Nora? Was it Arthur Vance? Was it the Federal Bureau? Who do you work for?”
Nora looked down at his grip, then slowly brought her eyes back to his face. There was no fear in her expression. Only an icy, ancient resolve.
“If I worked for Arthur Vance, your throat would have been cut in your sleep eight months ago,” Nora said quietly. “If I worked for the government, you’d be sitting in a supermax facility in Florence, Colorado. Let go of my wrist, Dominic.”
Dominic stared at her for five long seconds before releasing her hand.
“I saved your life three years ago,” Dominic said, his voice dropping into a dangerous rumble. “You were working in a small restoration gallery in Florence. You were cornered by local loan sharks. You played the helpless damsel so well I brought you back to the States. I married you. I built a fortress to protect you.”
“You built a cage to isolate me,” Nora corrected him, setting her empty glass down on the ruined mantelpiece. “And I let you, because for three years, I wanted to believe that the war was over. I wanted to paint. I wanted to cook dinner for a husband who came home late smelling of gunpowder and rain. I wanted normal.”
May you like
She stepped closer to him, her eyes flashing with a lethal, dark intensity.
“But then your psychotic ex-girlfriend came in here, smashed my mother’s heirloom vase, struck Beatrice across the face, and put a serrated combat knife to my throat.” Nora’s lips pulled into a thin, predatory line. “She woke something up that I spent ten years trying to put to sleep. And now that it’s awake, Dominic… we have a massive problem.”
