Chapter 5 - Dominic’s Desperation
Twenty minutes earlier, across the East River in a glass-walled penthouse overlooking the glittering spires of Midtown Manhattan, the air was thick with the scent of expensive bourbon and sour panic.
Dominic DeLuca paced the length of the Italian marble living room, his hands shaking so violently that the ice in his glass rattled like dice. His bespoke tuxedo jacket was discarded on the sofa; his shirt collar was torn open, soaked with sweat.
“This wasn't the plan, Serena!” Dominic screamed, turning on the blonde woman who was frantically shoving diamond necklaces, passport wallets, and stacks of banded hundred-dollar bills into a leather Louis Vuitton duffel bag. “You told me Marco would just sign the settlement! You said he would be so humiliated by the wedding scandal that he’d take the buyout and walk away to Italy!”
Serena didn't even look up from her packing. Her face, usually so composed and aristocratic, was twisted with cold disgust.
“Your brother is a savage in an eight-thousand-dollar suit, Dominic,” she spat, zipping up the first duffel and grabbing an alligator-skin briefcase from the safe behind the modern art piece. “Did you really think he was going to roll over because of a forged signature? The moment your mother opened her mouth, the game was over!”
“My mother is seventy-seven years old!” Dominic yelled, slamming his glass down on the glass coffee table, shattering the base. “Marco isn't going to let this go! He has Sal and Leo with him! Do you know what Sal did to the guys who tried to hijack our meat distributors in 2018? They never found the truck, Serena! They never found the truck!”
“Shut up!” Serena hissed, stepping up to him and slapping him across the face with the back of her diamond-encrusted hand.
The crack echoed through the cavernous penthouse. Dominic stumbled back, clutching his stinging cheek, staring at her in shock.
“Pull yourself together,” Serena snarled, her voice dropping into a razor-sharp whisper. “Richard has already handled it. While you were crying in the bathroom at your family’s estate, Richard sent his private security team to Greenwich Village. They picked up Lily Carter’s little sister outside her NYU dorm twenty minutes ago.”
Dominic’s stomach dropped. “What? The kitchen girl’s sister? Why the hell would you drag an innocent college kid into this?”
“Because that *kitchen girl* has your father’s cookbook!” Serena said, her eyes bulging with manic energy. “Richard’s father spent forty years terrified of Antonio DeLuca because of what was written in that filthy red rag! Richard isn't just trying to steal your family’s land, you idiot. He’s trying to destroy the evidence that could send him to prison for the rest of his natural life!”
Dominic stared at her as the horrifying truth finally penetrated his alcohol-soaked, ego-driven denial.
“You... you used me,” Dominic whispered, his knees turning to jelly. “You never cared about modernizing the restaurants. You never cared about expanding the brand to Miami or Vegas. You and Richard... you set me up from the very beginning.”
“Of course we used you, you pathetic little boy,” Serena laughed, a dry, cruel sound. “You were so desperate to be seen as a big man next to Marco. You lost twelve million dollars playing high-stakes baccarat in Macau because you wanted to prove you had bigger balls than your brother. We bought your debts for fifty cents on the dollar. You sold your mother out for a get-out-of-jail-free card, and now you’re crying because the bill arrived.”
She grabbed the two duffel bags and threw the strap over her shoulder.
“Where are you going?” Dominic gasped, reaching out for her arm. “You can’t leave me here! Marco will find me!”
Serena pulled a small, silver-plated .22 caliber pistol from her trench coat pocket and aimed it directly at Dominic’s chest.
Dominic froze, his hands flying into the air.
“Richard has a chartered Gulfstream waiting at Teterboro Airport,” Serena said coldly. “We’re flying to Zurich tonight. Once Richard retrieves the vault contents from Court Street, that block will be burned to ash. And as for you, Dominic... you’re the designated signatory on the Whitmore offshore holding accounts. When the federal investigators look into the collapse of DeLuca Hospitality tomorrow morning, your name will be on every shell company, every forged transfer, and every tax evasion wire.”
“You... you forged my name on the tax shelters?” Dominic whispered, his voice trembling with horror.
“You signed whatever I put in front of you while I was unbuttoning my blouse, darling,” Serena sneered, walking toward the private elevator foyer. “You were so easy it was almost boring. Goodbye, Dominic. Give your mother my regards... if she survives the night.”
The elevator doors slid shut with a soft chime, leaving Dominic DeLuca alone in the massive, echoing penthouse.
He stood frozen for sixty seconds, listening to the hum of the air conditioning. The silence felt like a tomb.
He looked down at his trembling hands. He remembered his father, Antonio, standing over the massive six-burner stove on Sunday mornings, flour dusted across his dark apron, laughing as he handed five-year-old Dominic a torn crust of warm Italian bread dipped in fresh ragù.
*“A man who doesn't protect his family, Dominic,”* his father’s deep voice echoed from the corridors of his memory, *“is not a man. He is just a ghost taking up space at the table.”*
Dominic dropped his head into his hands and fell to his knees on the cold marble floor, weeping like a broken child.
Then, his eyes caught the reflection of the glass-topped bar.
Lying on the polished wood was his personal cell phone.
He crawled across the floor, grabbed the phone with trembling fingers, and dialed a number he hadn't called without corporate arrogance in ten years.
The line rang once. Twice. Three times.
Then it clicked.
“Speak,” a harsh, gravelly voice barked on the other end.
“Uncle Frankie?” Dominic sobbed into the receiver. “Uncle Frankie, it’s Dominic. I... I ruined everything. They’re at Court Street. Richard Hale has men at Court Street, and they have a girl. They’re going to kill Marco.”
On the other end of the line, seventy-two-year-old Frankie DeLuca—Antonio’s younger brother, who had run the South Brooklyn docks with an iron fist for thirty years before retiring to his brownstone—didn't yell. He didn't curse.
He took a slow, deep breath that sounded like a furnace roaring to life.
“Where are you, boy?” Frankie asked quietly.
“Midtown. Serena took the money. She took the passports. She’s going to Teterboro.”
“Stay right there,” Uncle Frankie commanded. “Don’t touch nothing. Don't look out the window. If you leave that apartment before my boys get there, I will personally throw you into the East River myself. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, Uncle Frankie. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry—”
The line went dead.
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Dominic sat against the base of the sofa in the dark, listening to the distant sirens echoing across Manhattan, praying for the first time since his first communion that his brother’s hands were as lethal as the city whispered they were.
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