Chapter 3 - Cracks in the Armor
The transformation of the Moretti estate did not happen overnight, but the shifts were unmistakable.
It started at breakfast three days later.
Normally, Dominic ate alone at six in the morning in the formal dining room—a cavernous space with a table that could seat twenty people. Leo ate at seven-thirty in the small breakfast nook with me, staring quietly at his oatmeal before his private tutor arrived.
At seven-fifteen that Thursday, the heavy double doors of the kitchen swung open.
Dominic stepped in. He wasn't wearing his usual crisp black suit. Instead, he wore a dark charcoal sweater with the sleeves pushed up to his forearms, revealing dark ink tracing up his skin—tattoos I had never noticed before.
Lily, who was sitting on a booster seat swinging her legs, immediately gasped. “Big man!”
I nearly dropped the spatula. “Lily, manners!”
Dominic didn't scold her. He walked over to the kitchen island, his eyes scanning the table where Leo sat rigidly, his spoon suspended halfway to his mouth.
“Is there enough for one more?” Dominic asked, looking at me.
“Always,” I said, quickly recovering and grabbing a plate.
Dominic pulled out a stool right next to Leo. The boy shrank back slightly, his shoulders tensing up automatically. Dominic noticed it, a shadow of pain crossing his features, but he remembered our conversation. He didn't force a hug. He didn't demand affection.
Instead, he looked at Leo’s plate. “Oatmeal?”
“Yes, Dad,” Leo whispered.
“Is Isabella’s oatmeal better than the old chef’s?” Dominic asked smoothly.
Leo glanced at me nervously, then back at his father. “She... she puts brown sugar and dinosaur strawberries in it.”
Dominic looked at me, raising an eyebrow. “Dinosaur strawberries?”
“Strawberries cut to look like Stegosaurus spikes,” Lily announced proudly, her face smeared with maple syrup. “Mommy makes them roar before we eat them!”
Before I could apologize for my toddler's endless chatter, Dominic did something that made the entire room freeze.
He reached over, picked up a cut strawberry from Lily's plate, held it up, and made a low, shockingly accurate dinosaur roar.
Lily burst into a fit of high-pitched giggles. Leo’s jaw dropped. He stared at his father as if a alien had taken over his body.
“Dad?” Leo asked, his voice tiny. “You know how to roar?”
Dominic looked down at his son, his expression softening into something raw and beautiful. “I used to be very good at it. A long time ago.” He reached out, his hand hovering for a second before gently patting Leo’s dark hair. “Would you show me how to make the dinosaur roar again, Leo?”
A tiny, tentative smile—the first real smile I had ever seen on the boy's face when his father was in the room—bloomed on Leo's lips. “You have to dip it in the sugar first, Dad.”
I turned back to the stove, hiding the sudden prickle of tears in my eyes.
Over the next two weeks, the silence that had governed the estate for five years began to shatter. Lily’s laughter echoed through the high-ceilinged corridors. Leo started coming down to the kitchen after his lessons, asking if he could help me bake cookies or draw pictures with Lily.
And Dominic... Dominic was changing.
He started coming home at five instead of eight. He sat in the living room while the kids played building blocks on the rug. He didn't speak much, but his presence was no longer a shadow—it was an anchor.
One evening, after the children were asleep, I was in the library putting away Leo’s storybooks. The room was warm, lit by the amber glow of the fireplace.
“You have a natural gift with them,” a deep voice spoke from the shadows near the balcony.
I turned to see Dominic standing near the French doors, a glass of amber scotch in his hand. The firelight carved sharp angles across his handsome face.
“They're good kids, Dominic,” I said softly, stepping toward the door. “They just needed permission to be kids.”
He walked toward me, his heavy footsteps silent on the Persian rug. He stopped just a foot away. The heat radiating from him was palpable, mixing with the scent of sandalwood and rain.
“It wasn't just them who needed permission,” Dominic said, his dark eyes locked onto mine. “I haven't felt alive in this house since Elena died, Isabella. Until you brought your daughter through those doors.”
My heart skipped a beat. The air between us grew impossibly thick.
“Dominic...” I breathed.
He reached out, his long fingers gently tucking a stray lock of dark hair behind my ear. His touch was warm, sending a shiver straight down my spine.
“I know what people say about me,” he whispered, his thumb lightly brushing against my cheekbone. “They call me cold. Dangerous. Ruthless. Are you afraid of me, Isabella?”
I looked straight into his dark, tortured eyes, seeing the man behind the fortress.
“No,” I whispered honestly. “I'm not.”
Before he could answer, the security phone on his desk rang sharply, shattering the moment.
Dominic broke contact, his face hardening instantly as he picked up the receiver. “Moretti.”
I watched his expression shift from tender to deadly in a split second. His jaw set into stone.
“Where?” Dominic demanded into the phone. A pause. “Keep the security team on high alert. Nobody enters or leaves the perimeter without my personal clearance.”
He hung up and looked at me, the warmth gone, replaced by the dangerous ruler of Boston.
“What is it?” I asked, my pulse racing.
“Julian Vance,” Dominic said coldly. “My former business partner... and the man who orchestrated the accident five years ago. He just posted bail in New York. And his first phone call was to a contact here in Boston.”
Dominic stepped closer to me, his hands grasping my shoulders with possessive urgency.
“Starting tonight, security is doubling. You and Lily do not leave this estate without Frank and two armed escorts. Do you understand me, Isabella?”
May you like
I nodded, fear cold and sharp in my chest. “I understand.”
“I lost one family to that monster,” Dominic growled, his grip tightening gently. “I will burn this city to the ground before I let him touch you or the children.”
