Chapter 6 - Three WordsBack at the Hale estate in Westchester, the morning sun was burning off the remaining mist over the north training yard.
Daisy sat on the wooden bench under the oak tree, sipping a cup of chamomile tea while Bruno rested his massive head contentedly across her knees. Her apartment door had been repaired—replaced by a sleek, steel-reinforced security vault that looked like it could withstand a mortar attack—and Frank had personally assured her that her neighborhood patrol would remain active indefinitely.
She still wasn't entirely sure how to process everything that had happened over the last forty-eight hours.
The debt collection calls were gone. The mysterious men in hoodies were gone. And her modest animal rescue fund had suddenly received an anonymous, fully funded corporate endowment from a shell company that traced directly back to Hale Protection’s philanthropic wing.
Footsteps crunched softly on the gravel pathway.
Daisy looked up to see Dominic walking toward her. He had removed his overcoat; his white shirt was slightly unbuttoned, his tie gone, and his expression carried that familiar, intense gravity. But as he stopped a few feet away from the bench, the hard lines of his face softened noticeably.
“You look troubled, Miss Harper,” Dominic said quietly, resting one hand against the rough bark of the oak tree.
Daisy set her tea mug down on the bench. “Troubled? Mr. Hale, my front door looks like the entrance to a nuclear bunker, my veterinary debt has mysteriously vanished into thin air, and your security chief treats me like a visiting head of state. I’m starting to think my life has been hijacked by a psychological thriller.”
Dominic’s lips twitched into a faint, amused smile. “Is that a complaint?”
“It’s an interrogation,” Daisy countered, tilting her chin up. “I want to know what you did to Vince Moretti.”
“Moretti realized the error of his ways,” Dominic replied smoothly, stepping closer. “He decided to retire from the debt-collection business and focus on long-term vacations in a jurisdiction far away from New York.”
Daisy stared at him, reading between the lines with razor-sharp intuition. “You took his docks, didn't you?”
Dominic raised an eyebrow, maintaining a poker face that could have won world championships. “I engaged in a successful commercial acquisition.”
Daisy let out a soft, disbelieving laugh, shaking her head. “You’re terrifying, you know that? You operate like an absolute warlord.”
“And yet,” Dominic murmured, his dark eyes locking onto hers with a sudden, overwhelming intensity that made the air feel suddenly thin, “you’re the only person in this county who isn't afraid of me.”
Daisy’s breath hitched slightly. She looked down at Bruno, who let out a deep, contented sigh in his sleep, completely oblivious to the dramatic tension hovering in the air between his owner and the woman who had tamed him.
“I’m not afraid of you, Dominic,” Daisy whispered, using his first name for the very first time. “Because I know what you’re really protecting.”
Dominic stepped right up to the bench. He didn't care about his reputation, his syndicate, or the federal investigators watching his movements from distant satellites. He only cared about the woman who had walked into his courtyard, looked at his most dangerous beast, and shown him what true strength actually looked like.
He slowly knelt down on one knee in the grass beside her, bringing his eyes level with hers.
Bruno opened one brown eye, gave a sleepy thump of his tail, and closed them again, as if giving his official approval.
Dominic reached out, his warm, calloused fingers gently brushing against her hand where it rested on the wooden bench.
“When you first walked into this yard,” Dominic said, his voice dropping into a soft, gravelly whisper that sent a delicious shiver straight down Daisy’s spine, “you didn't shout commands. You didn't try to dominate him.”
“Because dominance is just fear wearing a mask,” Daisy replied softly.
Dominic nodded slowly. “You looked at a dog that everyone else had given up on—a dog that every man in my organization was terrified of—and you knelt down beside him.”
He squeezed her hand gently, his dark eyes shining with an emotion he hadn't allowed himself to feel in fourteen years.
“You told him three words,” Dominic whispered.
Daisy smiled, her hazel eyes sparkling with warmth and quiet defiance.
“Come here, sweetheart.”
Dominic’s smile widened, bright and unreserved, melting away the final layers of the cold, ruthless world he had built around himself.
May you like
“Come here, sweetheart,” Dominic repeated softly, lifting her hand to his lips and pressing a warm, lingering kiss against her knuckles. “Stay.”
Daisy didn't pull her hand away. She smiled, leaning forward as the morning sun washed over the gardens of the Hale estate, knowing that the most dangerous man in New York had finally been brought safely home.
