Chapter 2 - The Mask Slips
Dominic did not move for several seconds. His mind, hardened by years of surviving ambushes, betrayals, and street wars, refused to synthesize what he was looking at. He looked at Vivian—a woman who had personally executed three rival enforcers in a basement in Chicago—cowering like a beaten animal on his living room floor. Then he looked at his wife, whose small, delicate hands were currently adjusting a stray lock of hair behind her ear.
Behind Dominic, heavy footsteps echoed down the hallway.
Frankie and two other security guards burst through the broken doorway, their weapons drawn, their faces pale with sweat and adrenaline.
“Boss!” Frankie yelled, his voice tight. “We were ambushed at the front gate—someone deployed a short-range EMP, cut our comms and opened the—”
Frankie stopped mid-sentence. His eyes fell upon the bloody, whimpering mess that was Vivian Russo, then traveled slowly to Nora, who was dusting off her sleeves. Frankie’s jaw dropped. The two guards behind him lowered their weapons in absolute bewilderment.
“Get her out of my sight,” Dominic said. His voice was low, hollow, and thick with a strange, dark authority.
Frankie didn't ask questions. He motioned to his men. They stepped forward, grabbed Vivian by her uninjured shoulder, and hauled her to her feet. Vivian didn't fight them. She didn't scream threats or spit curses as she usually did. She kept her eyes glued to the floor, actively avoiding looking at Nora as the guards dragged her out of the drawing room, leaving a thick trail of blood across the white marble corridor.
The room fell completely silent again, save for the patter of rain against the shattered bay windows.
Dominic slowly engaged the safety on his Sig Sauer and holstered it beneath his coat. He walked into the center of the room, his eyes never leaving Nora’s face.
“Nora,” he said slowly, testing her name as if it belonged to a stranger. “What happened here?”
Nora looked around the room, letting out a soft, regretful sigh. “She was very rude, Dominic. She pushed past Frankie at the gate—or had her men do something to the electronics, I suppose. She burst in here while Beatrice was serving afternoon tea. She had a gun.”
“She had a gun,” Dominic repeated, his tone flat.
“Yes.” Nora walked over to a small side table that had somehow survived the destruction, picked up a porcelain saucer, and examined a crack along its rim with a look of genuine sorrow. “She pointed it at Beatrice first. Poor Beatrice was terrified. She ran to the kitchen to call you. I told Vivian that she was making a very serious mistake, but she refused to listen.”
Dominic took two steps closer to her. He was six-foot-four, built like a wall of solid muscle, a man who intimidated world-class criminals simply by entering a room. Yet right now, standing three feet from his five-foot-five wife, he felt an unprecedented sense of caution.
“Nora,” he said quietly, grabbing her by her shoulders and searching her face, her hands, her neck for any sign of injury. “Vivian Russo is a trained killer. Her arm was snapped in two places. Her face was crushed. How?”
Nora looked up at him, her dark eyes completely clear, innocent, and unbothered. “I disarmed her.”
“You... disarmed her?”
“She stepped too close,” Nora explained simply, as if describing how she repaired a tear in an old canvas. “She raised the weapon to my temple. Her balance was off—she was leaning too far forward on her left heel, and her wrist alignment was sloppy. I simply shifted her center of gravity, redirected the barrel, and broke the joint.”
Dominic stared at her. His throat felt dry.
“Shifted her center of gravity?” Dominic quoted, his voice rising slightly. “Redirected the barrel? Nora, where did you learn to break a person's arm like a dry twig?”
Nora blinked, a small, subtle smile touching the corners of her lips. “My father was very particular about my education, Dominic. I told you that when we met.”
“You told me your father was an art historian in Vienna!”
“He was,” Nora said smoothly, setting the cracked saucer down. “He was also the chief defensive consultant for the Austrian Special Operations Group for twenty-two years. Restoring sixteenth-century paintings doesn't pay for private boarding schools in Switzerland, darling.”
Dominic felt as though the floor beneath his feet was shifting. Seven years of knowing her, six months of marriage—every memory he had of her gently painting in her studio, every time he had stepped between her and a loud noise, every time he had worried that his dark world would taint her pure, fragile existence—shattered into a thousand pieces.
Before Dominic could respond, the sound of hurried footsteps returned.
Beatrice stepped into the doorway, clutching a wet towel to her chest, her eyes wide with lingering shock. She looked at the blood on the carpet, then at Dominic, and finally at Nora.
“Mr. Gallo,” Beatrice stammered, her voice shaking. “The... the police monitors on the scanner... someone reported gunshots near the main road. And... and Mr. Russo’s primary lieutenant, Thomas, is on line two. He says if Vivian isn't returned in ten minutes, he's bringing forty men to burn the estate down.”
Dominic’s eyes darkened instantly. The shock vanished, replaced by the familiar, lethal coldness of the Gallo family Don. He reached for his phone, but before he could pull it from his pocket, Nora stepped past him.
She walked directly over to the wall-mounted intercom system, pressed the button for the main gate, and spoke into the microphone.
“Frankie,” Nora commanded, her voice ringing out crisp, clear, and absolute across the property. “Tell Thomas Russo that if he brings his men within one mile of this perimeter, I will send his sister back to him in four separate boxes. And tell him to bring ten million dollars in cash by midnight to pay for my ruined rug.”
Silence fell over the intercom line for three agonizing seconds.
Then Frankie’s voice came back, sounding completely terrified. “...Yes, Mrs. Gallo. Right away.”
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Nora released the button, turned back toward Dominic, and smiled sweetly.
“You look tired, my love,” she said, stepping up to him and tenderly straightening his damp lapel. “Why don't you go change out of those wet clothes? I’ll have Beatrice make us some fresh tea.”
