Chapter 1 - The Blood on the Linoleum“Sadie,” she whispered into the hollow darkness of the overturned trash can, her voice barely carrying over the sharp, acrid smell of burnt copper and spilt soup. “Sadie Bennett.”
Dominic Russo did not move for three long seconds. In the dim, warm ambiance of Lombardi’s—now ruined by shattered lead crystal, acrid gunpowder smoke, and the heavy stench of iron—he looked less like a mythical crime lord and more like a mountain carved from gray granite. His charcoal jacket was unbuttoned, revealing a shoulder holster that gleamed under the soft track lighting. The revolver in his right hand was held with the easy, indifferent familiarity of a man who had carried one since adolescence.
Slowly, Dominic reached down. He did not offer her his hand—he knew better than to offer a bloodied palm to a terrified girl—but instead reached into his inner pocket, pulled out a pristine silk handkerchief, and dropped it onto the counter beside her trembling fingers.
“Clean your face, Sadie Bennett,” he said softly. His voice was low, devoid of the theatrical gravel common to corner-store thugs. It had a clean, dangerous weight to it. “You’re sitting in three hundred dollars' worth of broken Italian porcelain.”
“I’m... I’m sorry,” she choked out, wiping her chin with the edge of her sleeve before realizing the silk handkerchief was meant for that exact purpose. Her fingers trembled so violently she nearly dropped it. “I’ll pay for the urn. The tea—the water was three gallons. The urn was stainless steel. My manager, Carl, he said if I broke anything else this month—”
“Carl is currently locked in the walk-in freezer with his hands over his ears,” Dominic interrupted calmly. He turned his head slightly toward the two surviving guards standing near the shattered entry doors. “Nico. Check the big man.”
Nico, a broad-shouldered man in his late thirties with a deep scar running from his earlobe to the corner of his jaw, stepped over the wreckage. He nudged the unmoving giant with the toe of his expensive leather shoe. The assassin lay face down in a pool of water, melted ice, and his own dark blood where his brow had met the sharp marble edge of the host stand. His left leg was still bent at an impossible, terrifying angle, the trousers torn open where the scalding water had melted the synthetic fabric directly into his skin.
Nico knelt, drove a thick hand into the giant’s soaked coat, and pulled out a heavy wallet, two additional loaded magazines, and a satellite phone wrapped in electrical tape.
“He’s breathing,” Nico reported, his voice tight. “Barely. His skull’s cracked open like an egg, boss. But he’s alive.”
“Who is he?” Dominic asked.
“Never seen him in the city,” Nico said, flipping through the wallet. “No driver’s license. No credit cards. Just four thousand dollars in crisp hundred-dollar bills and a keycard for the extended-stay motel down by the navy yard.”
Dominic didn’t look at the wallet. His eyes remained fixed on Sadie, who was still crouching behind the service counter, her knees pulled tightly against her chest. Her uniform apron was soaked through with lukewarm tea, sticking to her skin in heavy, freezing folds.
“You didn’t faint,” Dominic observed quietly.
“I... I didn’t have time,” Sadie whispered. Her teeth were beginning to chatter, not from the cold, but from the massive surge of adrenaline slowly draining out of her bloodstream, leaving her hollow and fragile. “He was... he was going to hit you with that bar.”
“He was going to kill me with that bar,” Dominic corrected. He looked at the heavy, rusted steel rod resting against Sadie’s shoe. It was a concrete form stake, twelve pounds of solid iron, notched and pitted at the edges. One clean blow to the head would have crushed a man’s skull like a ripe melon. “And you stopped three hundred pounds of muscle with a pot of hot water.”
“I slipped,” she insisted frantically, her eyes wide with desperate honesty. “Mr. Russo, please, you have to understand! I didn’t try to be a hero! I tripped on the grease near the line station! If I hadn't slipped, he would have run right over me! Please don't tell Carl I broke the urn!”
A faint, ghost-like twitch touched the corner of Dominic Russo’s mouth. It wasn't quite a smile—men like Dominic forgot how to smile before they learned how to drive—but it was as close as he had come in five years.
“Carl doesn't own Lombardi’s, Sadie,” Dominic said softly. He stepped closer, his heavy shoes crunching on the glass. He knelt on one knee, bringing his eyes level with hers. For the first time, Sadie noticed the strange, pale flecks of amber in his brown eyes. “I own Lombardi’s. I own the building, the land under it, the linen on the tables, and the chair Carl sits on when he counts my money.”
Sadie swallowed hard. The air in her throat tasted like ash.
“Which means,” Dominic continued, reaching out with two fingers to gently lift her chin, forcing her to look at him, “you didn't break Carl’s urn. You saved my life with my urn.”
He stood up smoothly, turning to his remaining uninjured guard. “Marco. Get the car around to the rear alley. Nico, call Dr. Vane. Tell him we have an uninvited guest who needs his knee set and his skull patched before he wakes up to answer questions.”
“What about the cops, boss?” Nico asked, glancing at the front windows where rain was still pouring down in sheets against the dark street. “Three shots fired. Someone on Broad Street had to hear it.”
“The precinct captain owes me three favors,” Dominic said coldly. “The scene will be clean in ten minutes. But we aren't staying here.”
He looked back down at Sadie. She was trying to stand up, but her legs were like wet noodles. Her right hand, badly reddened from the garlic potato dish earlier, was swollen and blistered around the knuckles.
“Where do you live, Sadie?” he asked.
“Point... Point Breeze,” she stammered, holding onto the edge of the stainless steel counter to keep from collapsing. “An apartment on Twentieth Street. Third floor.”
“Is anyone waiting for you there?”
“Just... just my landlord’s notices.”
Dominic stared at her for a long moment. He took off his custom charcoal overcoat—a heavy, cashmere coat that probably cost more than Sadie made in six months—and draped it over her cold, dripping shoulders. The weight of it was immediate, carrying the sharp scent of cedar, expensive tobacco, and rain.
“You’re coming with me,” Dominic said.
“I... I have to finish my shift,” Sadie blurted out, her brain completely overwhelmed by fatigue, trauma, and poverty. “I need the fifty dollars for the electric bill. If I don't work the full shift, Carl deducts—”
“Sadie,” Dominic interrupted, his voice dropping into that terrifying, absolute calm again. “You are never working another shift in this restaurant. And your electric bill is paid for the next twenty years.”
May you like
Before she could process the words, Dominic hooked one large arm under her knees and the other behind her back, lifting her off the wet floor as easily as if she were a child.
Sadie was too exhausted to protest. She buried her face into the lapel of his coat, feeling the hard metal of his shoulder holster pressed against her cheek, and listened to the steady, unnerving rhythm of the mafia boss’s heart as he carried her out into the dark, rain-soaked alley.
