Chapter 5 - The Night in the Safe Room
Norah had spent months trying not to remember the night her baby was conceived.
Now there was no escaping it.
The memories returned every time Dominic entered a room.
Five months earlier, winter had buried the estate beneath six inches of snow.
Norah had been reading Lily a bedtime story when alarms erupted throughout the mansion.
Dominic appeared in the doorway seconds later.
“Get her up.”
Norah had never heard that tone before.
“What happened?”
“Now, Norah.”
She lifted Lily.
Dominic led them down a private staircase Norah had not known existed.
Behind the wine cellar was a steel door.
Beyond it, a secure room.
Food.
Water.
Medical supplies.
Surveillance screens.
Beds.
Dominic locked the door behind them.
Only then did Norah see the blood darkening his shoulder.
“You’re hurt.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“It looks worse than it is.”
She had heard people say that in movies.
It was never true.
Lily was half asleep and frightened.
Norah put her on one of the beds, turned on a cartoon with the sound low, then forced Dominic into a chair.
“Take off your shirt.”
His eyebrow lifted.
“This seems badly timed.”
“Dominic.”
Something in her expression stopped him.
He removed it carefully.
The injury was a deep cut across his shoulder, ugly but manageable.
Norah cleaned it.
Dominic watched her hands.
“You’ve done this before.”
“My father was a paramedic.”
Dominic looked surprised.
“You never talk about him.”
“There isn’t much to say.”
“Dead?”
Norah paused.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t know.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m not sorry.”
It was the first personal conversation they had ever shared.
Hours passed.
The estate remained under attack.
Norah learned later that a rival crew had rammed the front gate and attempted to enter through the west side.
Inside the safe room, she heard only muffled sounds.
Lily eventually fell asleep.
Dominic stood beside the surveillance monitor.
His face reflected blue light.
“Will they get in?” Norah asked.
“No.”
“You don’t sound certain.”
“I don’t say things I’m not certain about.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
He looked at her.
Norah immediately regretted the comment.
Then Dominic laughed.
Not politely.
Actually laughed.
It changed his entire face.
Norah stared.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re looking at me strangely.”
“I didn’t know you could do that.”
“Do what?”
“Laugh.”
His expression closed slightly.
“You should sleep.”
“So should you.”
“I don’t sleep while my house is being attacked.”
“That also sounds exhausting.”
Another almost-smile.
The hours stripped away the distance between employer and employee.
At three in the morning, they sat on the floor drinking terrible emergency coffee.
Dominic told her about Lily’s mother.
Elena.
They had never married.
They had loved each other badly and imperfectly.
Elena died in a car accident when Lily was two.
Dominic blamed himself because Elena had left the house after an argument.
Norah told him about her father.
A paramedic who raised her alone after her mother disappeared.
How he had taught her that fear should make a person careful, not cruel.
“You think I’m cruel?” Dominic asked.
Norah answered carefully.
“I think you’re capable of it.”
“Fair.”
“You admit that?”
“I know what I am.”
“That’s what frightens people.”
“What?”
“That you don’t pretend.”
Dominic looked at her for a long moment.
“Are you afraid of me?”
Norah should have said yes.
Instead she said, “Sometimes.”
“And right now?”
“No.”
That answer changed something.
Neither of them could later identify the exact moment it happened.
Perhaps when Dominic touched her wrist.
Perhaps when Norah asked whether he ever became tired of being feared.
Perhaps when the monitor showed armed men retreating from the estate and both of them realized they were going to survive.
Mortality made people reckless.
Relief made them vulnerable.
By dawn, they had crossed a line neither intended to approach.
It happened quietly.
Without promises.
Without declarations.
Two frightened adults clinging briefly to something warm while violence waited beyond a locked steel door.
Afterward, they sat beside each other in silence.
Dominic brushed a strand of hair from Norah’s cheek.
She remembered thinking that she had never seen him look so human.
Then the security light changed from red to green.
The world returned.
Dominic stood first.
By breakfast, he was Don Russo again.
The damaged gates were being repaired.
Lily was playing.
Norah was making pancakes.
Neither mentioned what happened.
Days passed.
Then weeks.
Dominic traveled constantly.
Norah began feeling sick.
The pregnancy test turned positive on a rainy Tuesday morning.
Norah sat on the bathroom floor for twenty minutes staring at it.
Her first feeling was terror.
Her second was something far more dangerous.
Happiness.
Now, five months later, Dominic stood in the same safe room.
Norah had not entered since that night.
He had brought her there after the threatening message.
“The security system is independent,” he explained. “Only four people know the access code.”
Norah looked at the bed.
Memories rushed back.
Dominic noticed.
“We don’t have to stay down here.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re always fine.”
“So are you.”
“Apparently we’re both liars.”
Norah looked at him.
For several seconds neither spoke.
Then Dominic said, “I should have talked to you afterward.”
Norah had not expected that.
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know how.”
“You control a criminal organization spanning three states, but conversation defeated you?”
“It’s more complicated.”
“That’s almost funny.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
Dominic leaned against the wall.
“I thought pretending it didn’t happen would make your life easier.”
“It made me think you regretted it.”
His face changed.
“I didn’t.”
Norah’s breath caught.
Dominic continued.
“I regretted the circumstances. Not you.”
“You never said that.”
“I’m saying it now.”
“Five months late.”
“Yes.”
The baby moved.
Norah’s hand covered her stomach automatically.
Dominic noticed.
“Was that—”
“Yes.”
He stared.
Norah hesitated.
Then she stepped closer.
“Give me your hand.”
Dominic looked strangely uncertain.
She almost laughed.
“Dominic.”
He extended his hand.
Norah placed it against the side of her belly.
For several seconds, nothing happened.
Dominic looked disappointed.
Then the baby kicked.
His entire expression changed.
Not dramatically.
Dominic Russo did nothing dramatically.
But Norah saw wonder move across his face.
The baby kicked again.
Dominic whispered, “Jesus.”
Norah smiled despite herself.
“That happens a lot after dinner.”
He left his hand there.
For the first time since discovering the pregnancy, the silence between them did not feel dangerous.
Then Dominic’s phone vibrated.
He looked at the screen.
His face hardened.
“What?”
Norah asked.
Dominic did not answer immediately.
Mateo had sent a photograph.
Another envelope.
This one had been found inside the mansion.
Not outside the gate.
Inside Dominic’s private office.
The message contained only one sentence.
You can’t protect both daughters.
Dominic read it twice.
Norah saw his expression.
“What does it say?”
He wanted to lie.
Instead he showed her.
Norah’s knees weakened.
Both daughters.
“Why daughters?”
Dominic looked at her stomach.
“You didn’t find out the sex.”
“No.”
“Then how do they know?”
Norah’s face went white.
Only one answer made sense.
Someone had access to information they did not.
Someone had gotten deeper into the clinic records than Dominic’s own people.
Or someone inside the clinic had been involved from the beginning.
Dominic locked the safe-room door.
Norah watched him.
“Dominic?”
He turned.
“The person doing this knows more than we do.”
May you like
And somewhere in the city, someone already knew that Norah Hayes was carrying Dominic Russo’s daughter.
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