Chapter 7 - Blood on the Marble
Dominic moved with the terrifying speed of an apex predator.
He didn’t try to dodge. As the blade sliced through the air, Dominic caught the attacker’s wrist with his left hand, twisting the joint violently until the bone snapped with a sickening crunch. The knife clattered to the marble floor. Dominic drove his right elbow into the man’s throat, dropping him like a sack of stones.
But the assassin’s momentum had carried him forward. As Dominic delivered the strike, the tip of the blade grazed deeply along Dominic’s left side, slicing through his tuxedo jacket and white shirt.
Dominic didn't make a sound. He raised his handgun and fired two shots through the smoke, neutralizing the remaining gunman charging up the balcony stairs.
At that moment, Dante and five heavily armed Romano security guards burst through the service doors, their automatic rifles blazing in disciplined bursts, securing the perimeter and driving the remaining hitmen toward the exits.
“Balcony is secure!” Dante shouted, his tactical flashlight cutting through the haze of gunpowder. “Boss! Are you hit?”
The emergency alarm began to wail, a deafening siren that echoed through the shattered ballroom. Dominic lowered his weapon, breathing heavily. He leaned against the marble balustrade, his right hand pressing firmly against his left ribcage.
I scrambled up from the floor, my emerald dress covered in dust and plaster.
“Dominic!”
When I reached him, I saw the dark, wet stain spreading across his white dress shirt. Blood—thick, crimson, and hot—was already soaking through his fingers, dripping onto the white marble floor.
“It’s a graze,” he said, his voice strained, though his face remained utterly devoid of panic. “Dante, get Chloe to the car. Now.”
“Don’t you dare tell him to move me!” I shouted, my waitress instincts, honed by years of managing restaurant kitchen emergencies and nursing my mother, kicking into overdrive.
I grabbed the hem of my silk gown and tore a long, thick strip of emerald fabric from the bottom with a violent rip.
“Sit down,” I ordered him, my voice brooking no argument. “Dominic, sit down right now!”
Dominic looked at me, stunned by the fierce authority in my eyes. Slowly, heavily, he sank down against the marble balustrade.
I dropped to my knees beside him. I pushed his hand away and unbuttoned his soaked shirt, exposing his chest. A jagged, six-inch laceration ran across his ribs. It was deep, bleeding profusely, but miraculously, it hadn't punctured the lung.
“Julian will stitch it,” Dominic murmured, his voice tightening as I pressed the wad of silk firmly against the wound.
“He can stitch it after I stop you from bleeding out on this terrace!” I snapped, leaning all my weight into the pressure point.
Dominic hissed through his teeth as the pressure hit the wound, but he didn't pull away. Instead, his right hand reached up, his fingers tangling into my hair, holding me steady. His dark eyes searched my face in the flashing red emergency lights.
“You’re shaking again, Chloe,” he whispered, his thumb brushing against my jawline.
“Because you’re an idiot who keeps jumping in front of bullets for me!” tears finally spilled down my cheeks, mixing with the dust on my face. “Why do you keep doing this? You’re Dominic Romano! You have armies of men to take hits for you!”
Dominic looked up at the shattered glass dome above us, then back into my eyes. The brutal, calculating mask of the mob boss was completely gone, leaving behind only the raw, wounded man beneath.
“An army can protect an empire, Chloe,” he said, his voice barely louder than the wailing sirens outside. “They can’t protect a soul.”
He swallowed hard, his grip in my hair tightening gently.
“For ten years, I thought I was already dead inside. Just a machine running shipping routes and counting money while waiting for someone to put a bullet between my shoulder blades. Then I was dying at table four. Everyone ran away. Everyone looked at their shoes.”
He leaned his forehead against mine, his breath warm against my trembling lips.
“And you ran toward me. You held my hand when you had nothing to gain and everything to lose. Do you understand, Chloe? You gave me my life back. My men bleed for my money. I will bleed for you.”
The air between us seemed to crackle with an unbearable, suffocating intensity. The wailing sirens, the distant shouts of police squads, Dante’s orders—everything faded into absolute silence.
All that existed was the smell of his blood, the warmth of his skin against my hands, and the terrifying, beautiful realization that I was falling irrevocably in love with the most dangerous man in Boston.
Dante rushed back onto the balcony, followed by two tactical paramedics carrying a portable medical kit.
“Boss, the convoy is running at the rear dock. We have to move before the State Police lock down the harbor.”
“Help him up,” I said immediately, never releasing the pressure on the silk bandage.
Dominic leaned heavily on Dante and me as we moved through the service corridors, escaping into the pouring rain where the armored Maybach waited with its engine purring.
As the car sped into the night toward Marblehead, Dr. Julian Ortiz worked frantically in the jump seat, stitching Dominic’s side while administering local anesthetics and saline. Dominic never took his eyes off me. Even when the needle pierced his flesh, his hand remained locked around mine, anchoring me against the madness of the night.
When the car finally cleared the city limits, Dante turned around from the front passenger seat, holding an encrypted phone.
“Boss,” Dante said, his expression grimmer than I had ever seen it. “The security team reviewed the museum’s internal circuit boards. The power grid wasn't hacked from the outside.”
Dominic stiffened, despite Julian’s warning to remain still. “What are you saying, Dante?”
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“The breaker switches were physically deactivated using an authorized biometric keycard from inside our private security headquarters,” Dante said quietly. “Moretti didn't orchestrate this hit alone. We have a mole in the inner circle.”
***
