She Called Him Trash After He Soaked Her—Then the Mafia Boss Walked Into Her Restaurant

I had been moved out of my small, drafty apartment in Pilsen—where the radiator clanked all night and the lock on the front door was held together by tape—and into a high-security penthouse apartment on the top floor of Dominic’s West Loop building.

My mother’s pharmacy bills had been quietly paid in full by a private trust. My university tuition for my final semester was marked Paid in Full.

In exchange, I sat in a sleek glass office adjacent to Dominic’s on the top floor of his headquarters, ostensibly filing port manifests, while Marcus’s security team patrolled the building perimeter twenty-four hours a day.

It was a golden cage, impeccably decorated, fully catered, and utterly suffocating.

"You look like a tiger trapped in a bathroom," Dominic remarked, stepping into my office at four in the afternoon carrying two paper cups of black coffee from the local Italian espresso bar.

"I don't like being a liability," I said, taking one of the cups without looking at him. "I spent my whole life paying my own way, Dominic. Now I sit here while your men stand outside my door like I'm a piece of fragile china."

Dominic leaned against the edge of my desk, crossing his arms over his chest. "Fragile china doesn't scream at a man in a black sedan while soaking wet. You're far from fragile, Nadia."

"Then let me go back to my life," I pleaded, stepping closer to him. "Your security team swept my old apartment. Nobody followed me. Nobody cares about the girl who dropped her apples in the gutter!"

Before Dominic could answer, the glass door to my office slammed open.

A tall, wire-thin man with a slicked-back ponytail and a custom gray suit walked in unannounced. Behind him, two of Dominic's guards were stepping forward, their hands resting on their sidearms, waiting for a command.

"Dominic," the man said, his voice grating and sharp, like rusty metal sliding across concrete. "You're getting hard to reach these days. I had to come all the way to your residential floor just to get an update on the river concessions."

Dominic didn't flinch. He didn't even turn his head quickly. He slowly straightened up from my desk, stepping smoothly between me and the visitor, his broad shoulders completely blocking me from the man's line of sight.

"Salvatore," Dominic said softly, his voice dropping into that terrifying, icy tone I had heard at Strada. "You know the rules of this floor. You don't enter without an invitation."

Salvatore smiled, revealing a row of unnervingly straight, porcelain-white veneers. His eyes flicked past Dominic’s shoulder, landing directly on me.

"Ah," Salvatore purred, his eyes narrowing with venomous satisfaction. "So the rumors from Wednesday night were true. The great Dominic Vane didn't just escape the puddle... he kept the little stray who tried to block his escape route."

My stomach dropped into a cold, dark abyss.

He knew.

Salvatore knew exactly who I was. The ambush on Wednesday wasn't just a random hit—it was Salvatore’s operation. And he had recognized me from the surveillance footage.

"Leave the room, Salvatore," Dominic warned, taking one step forward. The air in the office instantly turned thick with deadly promise. "Before I have Marcus throw you off the balcony."