Chapter 4
The basement beneath the Valenti estate was not a wine cellar, despite what the architectural blueprints filed with Cook County claimed.
It lay thirty feet below the foundation, behind a reinforced steel vault door that required both a biometric scan and a six-digit rolling code. Down here, the walls were bare poured concrete, the lighting came from raw fluorescent tubes hanging by industrial chains, and the drainage grates in the floor were connected directly to the city’s deep storm tunnels.
Marcus Hale was sitting on a metal folding chair in the center of the room.
His hands were zip-tied behind his back. His expensive Italian silk tie was undone, hanging limply over his chest like a noose. His forehead was slick with sweat, the fluorescent light bouncing off his pale, terrified skin.
Standing behind him were Daniel and Jimmy, both holding suppressed semi-automatic pistols resting against their thighs.
When the heavy steel door groans open, Marcus jerked his head up.
Dominic walked down the three concrete steps, unbuttoning his cuffs. Behind him, walking slowly with the aid of a silver-tipped cane, was me.
Dominic had insisted I come.
*If you want to survive in this world, Emma,* he had told me upstairs, *you need to watch your monsters die. Otherwise, you’ll spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder.*
"Dominic," Marcus gasped, his voice cracking into a shrill, desperate whine. "Dominic, listen to me! This is Daniel’s doing! They set me up! They took my phone, they threw me down here—I’ve served this family for four years! Four years!"
Dominic didn't answer. He walked over to an aluminum workbench bolted to the wall, picked up a pair of heavy leather work gloves, and slowly pulled them onto his hands.
"Four years," Dominic repeated. His voice bounced off the cold concrete. "And in those four years, Marcus, did you ever hear me raise my voice?"
Marcus swallowed hard. His chest was heaving. "No. No, boss."
"Do you know why I don't raise my voice?"
"Dominic, please—"
"Because men who scream are men who lack control," Dominic said evenly, flexing his gloved fingers. "And I have never lost control of anything in my life. Not my city. Not my business. And certainly not the people who sleep beneath my roof."
Dominic turned around.
In his right hand, he held a black leather-bound book.
Marcus’s eyes widened to the size of saucers. His breath caught in his throat.
"Is this what you were waiting for?" Dominic asked, holding up the ledger. "It’s nine-fifty-two. Emma was eight minutes early."
Marcus looked from the book to me, his expression twisting from terror into venomous hatred. "You stupid bitch. You signed your brother’s death warrant. You think he cares about you? You think Valenti cares about a maid? You’re nothing to him!"
Before Marcus could finish his sentence, Dominic crossed the floor in two terrifying strides.
He didn't hit him with his fist.
He drove the heavy, metal-cornered ledger directly into Marcus’s mouth.
The sound of shattering teeth was sickeningly loud in the enclosed basement. Blood sprayed across Marcus’s chin and splashed onto his white collar. He let out a muffled shriek of agony, choking on fragments of enamel and blood as his head snapped back violently.
Dominic leaned down until his nose was an inch from Marcus’s ruined face.
"Speak to her with respect," Dominic whispered. "Or I will peel your tongue out of your head with a pair of pliers."
Marcus coughed, spitting red onto the concrete floor. "You're... you're too late, Valenti," he wheezed, blood bubbling on his lips. "The Morettis... they already know. They know you’re shipping the heroin through the Calumet river terminal on Thursday. They know your route."
Dominic didn't even blink. "I don't ship heroin. My father didn't ship heroin, and neither do I. Heroin brings federal heat, Marcus. You’d know that if you had a brain between your ears."
Marcus blinked, stunned through his pain. "What?"
"The Calumet route was a bait manifest," Dominic said coolly. "I put those fake shipping orders in my study desk three weeks ago. I wanted to see who would try to sell them. And yesterday, a lieutenant from the Moretti crew contacted one of my dock captains to confirm the shipment."
Dominic tossed the ledger onto the metal table behind him. It landed with a dull thud.
"You were a dead man twenty-one days ago, Marcus," Dominic said softly. "The moment you laid hands on Emma in my garage this morning... that was simply you choosing how painfully you wanted to die."
Marcus began to weep. The arrogant house manager, the man who had looked down on me and treated me like trash for eleven months, was suddenly reduced to a sobbing, pathetic mess of snot and blood.
"Please," Marcus whimpered. "The boy. Leo. They have him at the meatpacking plant off 47th Street. Moretti’s men are holding him in the cold storage. If I don't call them with the code word by midnight, they’ll slit his throat! Kill me, Dominic! Kill me, but save the boy! Emma didn't do anything!"
Dominic reached out, gripped Marcus by the hair, and pulled his head back until his neck tendons strained.
"What is the code word, Marcus?"
Marcus stared into Dominic’s eyes, saw the utter absence of mercy there, and whispered,
"*Sanctuary.*"
Dominic held his gaze for five full seconds.
Then he looked over Marcus’s head at Daniel.
"Check his phone," Dominic ordered. "See if that matches the text drafts."
Daniel pulled Marcus’s encrypted phone from his breast pocket, scrolled with his thumb, and nodded once. "It's verified, Boss. Draft message set to an unsaved burner number: *Sanctuary.*"
Dominic released Marcus’s hair.
"Good," Dominic said.
He turned away from Marcus and walked toward me. He looked down at my pale, trembling frame, taking in the way I was leaning all my weight onto the silver cane.
"Daniel," Dominic said, never taking his eyes off mine.
"Sir?"
"Take Jimmy. Take six men from the South Side crew. Go to the meatpacking plant off 47th. Bring Emma’s brother here alive. If anyone in that building reaches for a weapon, put them in the incinerator."
"Understood, Boss." Daniel tapped Jimmy's shoulder, and the two massive guards turned and sprinted up the concrete stairs, the heavy vault door slamming behind them.
I couldn't move. My knees felt like water. "Mr. Valenti... you’re... you’re saving him?"
"I don't leave debts unpaid, Emma," he murmured.
Behind us, Marcus let out a shuddering breath of relief. "Thank you... God, Dominic, thank you. I’ll leave the state. I’ll take the first flight to Mexico. You’ll never see me again—"
Dominic didn't turn around.
He reached beneath his armpit, drew a sleek, black Glock 19 with a carbon-fiber silencer attached to the barrel, and fired once over his right shoulder without even looking.
*Pfft.*
The round took Marcus Hale directly between his eyes.
His head snapped back, his eyes rolled white, and his body slumped forward against the zip-ties, dead before his forehead hit his knees.
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Dominic holstered his weapon, pulled off the leather gloves, and dropped them into a metal trash bin beside the workbench.
Then he walked over to me, wrapped one strong arm around my waist, lifted me off my feet like I weighed nothing, and kicked the silver cane away.
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"Let's get you back upstairs," he said calmly, as if he hadn't just ended a man’s life. "You shouldn't be standing on that foot."
***
