Chapter 5
He didn't take me back to the guest wing.
Dominic carried me up the private elevator, through the reinforced oak double doors, and straight into the penthouse master suite on the third floor—a space strictly forbidden to household staff.
In the eleven months I had worked in this mansion, I had never set foot beyond those double doors. The maids whispered about it in the laundry room: Italian marble floors, floor-to-ceiling panoramic glass overlooking the Chicago skyline, walls lined with priceless modern art, and a king-sized bed draped in Egyptian cotton the color of midnight.
Dominic set me down gently onto the edge of the mattress.
"Stay," he commanded softly.
He walked into the adjoining master bathroom and returned a moment later carrying a fresh towel, a bowl of warm water, and a fresh roll of gauze. He set them on the nightstand, then pulled off his shoes and sat down on the carpet right in front of me, crossing his long legs.
He took my injured foot into his lap.
"Mr. Valenti, you don't have to do this," I said, my voice shaking. "I’m just... I’m your maid."
Dominic dipped the corner of the towel into the warm water and carefully wiped away a small smear of dried blood that had seeped past Dr. Russo’s bandage.
"You stopped being my maid the second you took a tire iron to the heel to keep from betraying me," Dominic said, not looking up. His touch was clinical, yet every place his calloused fingers brushed against my bare skin felt like an electric current. "A maid runs away. A maid opens the safe, takes the money, and blames it on the guards. You stood in my dining room with blood filling your shoe and tried to serve wine so you wouldn't cause a scene."
He lifted his eyes. His gaze was fierce, piercing straight into the core of who I was.
"That isn't servitude, Emma. That’s loyalty. And in my world, loyalty is rarer than gold."
My chest hitched. "I was terrified."
"Courage isn't the absence of fear," he murmured, his thumb stroking the curve of my arch with agonizing tenderness. "It's doing what must be done even when your hands are shaking."
He finished wrapping the fresh layer of dressing around my ankle and secured the medical tape with a sharp snap. Then, instead of moving away, he remained sitting on the floor between my knees, looking up at me.
"Who taught you to walk like that?" he asked suddenly.
I froze. "What?"
"In the dining room tonight," Dominic said, tilting his head. "When you crossed from the sideboard to the door. You didn't just limp. You shifted your center of gravity to your left hip, kept your spine completely aligned, and rolled off the balls of your toes to minimize the impact shock on your calf. That’s not how a waitress hides an injury."
My heart skipped a beat.
"That’s how a ballerina walks when she’s danced through a stress fracture," Dominic stated evenly.
The secret I had buried for three years suddenly surfaced, cracking wide open under his gaze.
"I was with the Joffrey Ballet," I confessed quietly, looking down at my hands. "Apprentice company. Soloist track."
"What happened?"
"A hit-and-run driver on Michigan Avenue," I whispered. "Shattered my left collarbone and tore the meniscus in both knees. Six surgeries. My father spent his entire life savings trying to pay the physical therapy bills before he died. The doctors told me I’d never dance on stage again. So... I learned how to clean floors instead. It was the only thing that kept me moving."
Dominic studied my face for a long, quiet moment. There was no pity in his eyes. He didn't look at me like I was broken.
He looked at me like I was a survivor.
"You won't clean another floor in this house, Emma," he said, rising to his feet with fluid grace.
"Then what am I going to do?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper. "Where do I go?"
"Nowhere," Dominic replied, walking over to the bar in the corner of the suite and pouring two glasses of sparkling water. "You stay here. In this suite."
"With you?"
"With me." He handed me a glass, his dark eyes locking onto mine. "Marcus was right about one thing. The Morettis know he was working inside this house. When Daniel kicks in the door of that meatpacking plant tonight, war is going to break out across this city. Car bombs. Drive-bys. Hit squads at every intersection."
He took a slow drink, his eyes never leaving mine.
"You're a loose end, Emma. You know Marcus was the leak. You know what he was looking for. Outside these walls, you and your brother would be dead before the sun comes up."
"And inside these walls?" I asked, my breath trembling.
Dominic leaned down, placing one hand on the mattress right beside my hip, his face inches from mine.
"Inside these walls," Dominic murmured, "you belong to me. And nobody touches what’s mine."
Before I could process the heat flaring in my chest, the satellite phone on the nightstand buzzed with an urgent, sharp vibration.
Dominic straightened instantly, picking it up and tapping the speaker button.
"Report," he ordered.
Daniel’s voice crackled through the speaker, heavy with static and the distant sound of blaring Chicago sirens.
*“Boss, we got the kid. Leo’s safe. We’re in the armored Suburban heading back to the perimeter now.”*
I let out a breathless sob of pure relief, pressing my hands to my face.
*“But Boss...”* Daniel’s voice hesitated. That was never a good sign.
Dominic’s jaw tightened. "Speak, Daniel."
*“The Moretti crew at the plant... they were already dead when we arrived. Throats cut. Every single one of them. And pinned to the kid’s chest was an envelope.”*
Dominic’s eyes narrowed into slits. "Addressed to who?"
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*“To Emma,”* Daniel said, his voice dropping an octave. *“It says: Welcome home, little bird.”*
***
