Chapter 5 - Blood on the MarbleThe world narrowed to a fraction of a second.
Dorian didn't hesitate. He grabbed Marin by the waist, throwing her hard behind the protective steel bulk of the armored Maybach just as a silenced gunshot cracked through the damp air of the garage.
Ping.
A 9mm round sparked off the concrete pillar where Dorian had been standing a heartbeat earlier.
“Stay down!” Dorian ordered, drawing his Sig Sauer in a fluid, practiced motion.
Titan didn't hide. With a furious roar that sounded more like a wild predator than a domestic dog, the Cane Corso launched himself into the shadows toward the service exit.
Dorian dropped to one knee, angling his weapon around the rear tire of the car. In the dim light, he saw a dark figure stumble backward as Titan slammed into him with the force of a battering ram. A suppressed pistol clattered across the floor.
Two more security guards, alerted by the gunfire, poured out of the basement stairwell with weapons drawn.
“Secure the perimeter!” Dorian roared, his voice echoing off the concrete walls with absolute dominance. “Nobody leaves this sublevel alive!”
Dorian kept his gun raised as he backed up toward the Maybach, checking to ensure Marin was unharmed.
She was pressed flat against the rear tire, her breathing coming in ragged, terrified gasps, her hands clamped over her mouth. But she wasn't crying. Trauma had trained her to survive chaos long before she ever met a mafia boss.
“Are you hit?” Dorian demanded, dropping down beside her.
“No,” she choked out. “No, I’m okay.”
“That was a professional shot,” Dorian muttered, his eyes scanning the shadows where his guards were already subduing the attacker. “Pike didn't hire a hitman. That was a clean-up crew.”
The guards dragged the struggling assailant out into the light of the main garage.
It wasn't a stranger.
It was one of Dorian’s own senior intelligence analysts—a man named Vance Miller, who had worked on the eighteenth floor for five years.
Miller’s face was bruised from Titan’s takedown, his nose bleeding onto his expensive tie. As Dorian stood up and walked slowly toward him, the analyst laughed—a hysterical, broken sound.
“You’re too late, Dorian,” Miller spat out, blood bubbling on his lips. “The data was uploaded to the federal prosecutor’s office an hour ago. The shell companies, the offshore accounts, the bribes to the city council—it’s all out. Your empire is finished.”
Dorian didn't strike him. He didn't raise his voice. He simply stared down at the traitor with a look of profound, chilling disappointment.
“You thought selling my ledgers to the feds would save you?” Dorian asked quietly. “Who promised you immunity, Miller? My brother? Or someone higher up on the family council?”
Miller’s eyes flicked sideways for a split second—a micro-expression of absolute terror that confirmed everything Dorian suspected.
“Take him to Goose Island,” Dorian told his guards without looking back. “And make sure he’s comfortable. We’re going to have a very long conversation about family secrets.”
As the guards hauled Miller away, the garage fell back into an eerie, suffocating silence.
Dorian turned around and walked slowly back to the Maybach.
Marin was still sitting against the tire, her hands trembling as she tried to pull herself up. Her knee brace had slipped slightly during the fall, and a dark bruise was already forming along her shin.
Without a word, Dorian holstered his weapon, walked over, and scooped her up into his arms.
Marin gasped, instinctively wrapping her arms around his neck to keep from falling. “Mr. Vance—what are you doing? I can walk—!”
“Quiet, Marin,” Dorian murmured against her hair, his deep voice vibrating through his chest. “You’ve done enough walking for one lifetime.”
He carried her past the blood on the concrete, past the armed guards who prudently kept their eyes fixed straight ahead, and placed her gently in the passenger seat of his armored car.
He closed the door, walked around to the driver's side, and slid behind the wheel.
As Titan leaped gracefully into the back seat, resting his massive head between the front seats, Dorian started the engine.
“Where are we going?” Marin whispered, looking at him with wide, uncertain eyes.
“Not back to your apartment,” Dorian said, shifting the Maybach into drive and heading up the ramp toward the rainy Chicago streets. “My penthouse has better security. And more importantly... my dog refuses to be separated from you.”
May you like
Marin looked at the massive Cane Corso in the rear view mirror, then at the dangerous, unyielding man driving the car.
For the first time in twenty-two months, the cold ache in her chest felt a little bit lighter.
