Chapter 5 - The Gala of Blood and Silk
The air in the study felt as though all the oxygen had been vacuumed out.
My heart hammered against my cracked ribs so hard I thought the incisions would split wide open. I stood behind the desk, clutching the edge of the mahogany until my knuckles turned white, staring at the man in the doorway.
"You knew my father," I whispered, the words shaking as they left my lips. "You didn't just have a file on me. You... you were there when he died."
Dominic didn't move. He didn't rush forward to seize the papers, nor did he apologize. He stepped into the amber light of the desk lamp, his face carved from granite.
"I was nineteen," he said, his voice flat, devoid of the warmth he had shown me earlier on the chaise. "My father was a monster who thought blood was the only currency that mattered. He ran that warehouse. Marcus Vance was his chief accountant."
"My mother told me he was killed by a drunk driver!"
"Your mother lied to protect you," Dominic countered, taking a single, measured step closer. "Because the truth was that Marcus found an eighty-million-dollar discrepancy in my father's books—money my father was skimming from the Five Families. Marcus was going to go to the feds. Salvatore found out."
Tears blurred my vision, hot and stinging. "And you helped him kill my father?"
"No," Dominic snapped, the first real crack in his composure. "I drove the car. I was nineteen, Tessa. I didn't know what was waiting inside that warehouse until I heard the shots. I ran in to stop him, but it was too late. Marcus was gone. And Salvatore put a gun to my forehead and told me that if I ever spoke a word of it, my mother would be next."
He stood just across the desk now, towering over me. The raw, suffocating guilt radiating off him was almost tangible.
"Three months later, Salvatore died of a 'sudden heart attack,'" Dominic continued, his eyes burning into mine. "I took the syndicate. The first thing I did was look for Marcus's family to make it right. But your mother had already taken you, changed your names from Vance-Miller to Miller, and vanished into New York's boroughs. It took me nine years to track you down."
"And when you did?" I choked out. "You watched me? You had men photograph me like I was a criminal?"
"I was paying off your mother's hospital bills anonymously through third-party charities for six months before you ever walked into the Aster Crown Hotel," he said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. "I set up the catering contract. I wanted you there that night because I was planning to approach you. I was going to offer you a trust fund—enough money so you and your mother would never have to work another day in your lives. To pay my father's debt."
He paused, his jaw tightening until the bone protruded.
"I didn't plan for Victor Costa to send a hitman for my mother. I didn't plan for you to throw yourself into the line of fire. You were supposed to be safe, Tessa. Instead, you took the bullets that were meant for my sins."
I stared at him, my mind reeling, the world tilting beneath my feet.
He hadn't married me out of sudden chivalry. He hadn't saved my mother out of spontaneous generosity. It was guilt. An all-consuming, ten-year-old debt of blood and shame that had bound our lives together long before the first gunshot rang out in that ballroom.
Before I could speak, the study door swung open again. Isabella stood in the entranceway, her silver hair perfectly coiffed, her face pale. Behind her stood Enzo, holding a garment bag.
"The time for family ghosts is over, Dominic," Isabella said, her voice sharp and commanding. "Costa has called an emergency conclave at the Metropolitan Club for midnight. He’s brought the heads of the Chicago and Philadelphia families as arbiters. If you don't show up, they sanction an open hit on this house."
Dominic's eyes snapped away from mine, his demeanor shifting instantly into war footing. "Who told Costa he could call a conclave?"
"He claims you breached syndicate law," Enzo said grimly. "He claims you married an unauthorized outsider without the commission's blessing to shield a federal asset. He's trying to declare your marriage invalid so he can execute Tessa as an open witness."
The room went deathly silent.
Dominic looked back at me. The vulnerability that had been in his eyes moments ago vanished, replaced by an inferno of pure, cold resolve.
"Get the dress, Enzo," Dominic ordered.
"Dominic, she can barely stand—" Isabella started, but Dominic cut her off.
"If she stays here, she looks like a hostage. If she cowers in this mansion, Costa smells blood in the water. She walks into that conclave on my arm, as Mrs. Rossi, or we spend the next five years fighting a multi-state war in the streets."
He stepped around the desk, stopping just inches from me. He reached out, his fingers hovering over the scattered surveillance photos before gently tilting my chin up so I was forced to look at him.
"You hate me," he murmured, his voice so quiet only I could hear. "You have every right to. But tonight, Tessa, you are the queen of this family. You wear the silk. You wear the diamonds. And you let them see that seven bullets couldn't kill you, and an entire room of wolves can't break you."
He leaned in, his lips brushing my ear, sending a terrifying shiver down my spine.
May you like
"Help me end this tonight. And tomorrow... if you want to leave, I’ll sign the papers myself."
***
