Chapter 5 - Fractured Loyalties
By the seventh month, my body was heavy, aching, and permanently exhausted.
My stomach curved prominently beneath the custom cashmere dresses Dominic ordered for me. The genetic screening had confirmed what Dominic already knew: a boy. An heir to the Caruso syndicate.
The announcement had sent shockwaves through the five families. The Vitellis sent a cradle carved from imported Tuscan walnut. Corrupt judges sent engraved silver rattles. Dominic’s empire had never looked more untouchable.
Yet inside the penthouse, the air was poisoned.
Dominic had placed four guards outside my bedroom doors. I was forbidden from leaving the residential floor without his personal authorization. He claimed it was for my protection—tensions with the Vitellis were simmering over disputed shipping routes in Brooklyn—but I knew the truth.
It wasn't protection. It was quarantine.
One Tuesday afternoon, while Dominic was downtown at the federal courthouse handling a grand jury subpoena, the elevator doors in the penthouse foyer chimed.
I stepped out of the library, holding a glass of iced water, expecting Dr. Chen.
It wasn't Dr. Chen.
Julianna Vance stood in the marble entryway, draped in a white fur coat that practically glowed against the dark granite floor. Two of Dominic’s guards stood behind her, their heads bowed, looking intensely uncomfortable.
“You can leave us,” Julianna ordered the men casually, waving a manicured hand.
The guards hesitated, glanced at me, and retreated toward the elevator.
Julianna had the run of the Caruso empire. The guards knew who Dominic slept with; they knew who held the boss’s ear when the doors were closed.
“What are you doing in my home?” I asked, keeping my voice level, though my hand tightened around my glass.
Julianna took her time. She wandered into the living room, running her crimson-tipped fingernails over the grand piano, examining the modern art on the walls with blatant mockery.
“Your home?” She laughed—a high, musical sound that set my teeth on edge. “Darling, Dominic bought this penthouse five years ago. I chose the upholstery. I selected the marble. You’re just a temporary tenant who happens to be carrying his luggage.”
“If you came here to insult me, you’re wasting your breath,” I said, moving toward the internal house phone. “Leave before I have security throw you out.”
“Security won't touch me, Diana,” she purred, stopping by the floor-to-ceiling windows. “Dominic gave me master clearance to every property he owns. Including this one.”
She reached into her designer handbag and pulled out a manila envelope, tossing it onto the glass coffee table between us.
“What is that?”
“A reality check,” Julianna smiled cruelly. “Dominic’s legal team drafted it last month. The moment you deliver that boy, you will be offered a twenty-million-dollar settlement, a villa in Tuscany, and a non-disclosure agreement with a gag order enforceable by lethal force. Full custody remains with Dominic.”
The room spun.
I stared at the envelope. My throat closed up. “You’re lying.”
“Am I?” Julianna tilted her head, her feline blue eyes gleaming with malicious satisfaction. “Look inside. His signature is already on the draft. Dominic doesn't want a secretary raising a future mafia don. You don't have the stomach for this life. You cry in city parks when he raises his voice.”
She took two steps toward me, her perfume sickeningly sweet.
“Dominic loves me, Diana. He has always loved me. You are a legal shield. A pristine, unblemished surrogate to keep the Vitellis and the feds off his back. Once that baby is out of you, your time in this house is finished.”
A sudden, sharp kick inside my belly made me gasp. I pressed a hand against my side, struggling to maintain my balance.
“Get out,” I whispered, pure hatred coating my words. “Get out of my sight before I kill you myself.”
Julianna laughed again, entirely unbothered. She turned toward the elevator, adjusting her fur coat. “Keep the nursery clean, Diana. I’ll be decorating it next month.”
The elevator doors closed behind her.
I collapsed onto the sofa, my hands shaking uncontrollably as I tore open the envelope.
The legal letterhead was authentic: *Caruso Holdings & Legal Associates.* The clauses were brutal. Total relinquishment of parental rights. A lifetime restraining order barring me from approaching within five hundred feet of any Caruso property or child. And at the bottom, scrawled in black ink, was the sharp, unmistakable signature of Dominic Caruso.
A dry sob tore from my throat.
He was going to steal my baby.
He was going to hand my son—the little boy who kicked against my ribs every morning—to Julianna Vance.
“I told you he was a monster.”
I jumped, clutching the papers to my chest.
Marcus Santoro was standing near the terrace doors. He was dressed in a dark tactical jacket, a duffel bag slung over one shoulder. The glass sliding door was cracked open behind him; he had bypassed the service elevator and climbed through the private maintenance access.
“Marcus?” I gasped, terror and shock colliding in my chest. “How did you get in here? If the guards see you—”
“The guards on the perimeter are on my payroll now,” Marcus interrupted, crossing the room swiftly and dropping to one knee before me. His eyes were wide, urgent, laced with panic. “Diana, you have to listen to me. We don't have time.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The Vitellis aren't honoring the truce,” Marcus said, his voice a breathless whisper. “They know Dominic has been funneling weapons through the Newark port without cutting them in. They’re planning a strike tonight. Not downtown—here. At the Caruso estate upstate where Dominic is moving the family assets for the weekend.”
I shook my head, my mind swimming in panic. “Dominic said the upstate manor was completely secured—”
“Dominic is walking into a massacre, and Julianna Vance is the one who unlocked the back door!” Marcus grabbed my trembling hands. “Julianna’s cousin is married into the Vitelli capos. She’s been leaking Dominic’s security routes for three months. She wants Dominic weakened so her family takes over the shipping ports, and she’s using Dominic’s obsession with her to blind him!”
I looked down at the custody agreement, then up at Marcus.
“He doesn't see it,” I whispered. “He thinks she belongs to him.”
“Dominic is blind when it comes to her,” Marcus pleaded. “Diana, come with me right now. I have a car waiting two blocks away. An unmarked medical flight out of Teterboro is ready to take you to a clinic in Switzerland. You can have your baby safely. You can disappear where neither Dominic nor the Vitellis will ever find you!”
I stared at his outstretched hand.
It was freedom. It was safety for my unborn child.
I opened my mouth to say yes.
*BAM.*
The heavy double doors of the penthouse burst open, splintering against the granite walls with the force of an artillery shell.
Dominic stood in the threshold.
He was drenched in rain, his trench coat soaked, a customized Beretta drawn in his right hand. Behind him were six heavily armed Caruso soldiers, their assault rifles raised, laser sights painting the room in lethal red dots.
Dominic’s eyes scanned the room, landing on Marcus holding my hands, then dropping to the open duffel bag on the floor.
The look on Dominic’s face was not human.
It was the cold, hollow gaze of an executioner who had just found treason inside his own temple.
May you like
“Step away from my wife, Marcus,” Dominic whispered, the silence of the room amplifying the deadly click of his firearm’s safety being disengaged. “Or I paint this marble with your brains.”
***
