Chapter 5 - The Night the Empire Chose Sides
The first explosion shook dust from the library ceiling.
Dominic did not run toward it.
He grabbed Riley’s hand and pulled her toward the service corridor.
She resisted.
“My father’s evidence.”
“Marco has the drive.”
“The letters?”
Dominic swept them into his coat.
“Happy?”
“No.”
“Good. I’d worry if you were.”
Gunfire erupted downstairs.
The Castelli estate had forty-two security personnel on rotation.
That night, only seventeen were present.
Six immediately stopped responding.
Dominic understood what that meant.
Betrayal.
“West stairwell,” Marco said.
They descended toward an underground garage.
Halfway down, a man stepped from the shadows.
Dominic raised his weapon.
The man raised his.
Riley recognized him.
Salvatore.
One of the two guards who had been in her butcher shop.
“Sal?” Dominic said.
The guard’s eyes filled with shame.
“I’m sorry, boss.”
Riley saw his finger tightening.
She moved first.
A fire extinguisher hung beside her.
She ripped it free and swung.
Metal struck Sal’s wrist.
The gun fired into the ceiling.
Dominic tackled him.
Marco kicked the weapon away.
Within seconds Sal was restrained.
Dominic stared down at a man who had worked for him eight years.
“How much?”
Sal spat blood.
“You think this is money?”
“Usually is.”
“You don’t understand what DeLuca built.”
Dominic crouched.
“Explain.”
“He built stability.”
“By murdering my father?”
Sal’s expression answered before his mouth did.
Dominic went still.
Riley watched rage pass through him.
He could have killed Sal.
Everyone expected him to.
Instead Dominic stood.
“Lock him in the wine cellar.”
Marco blinked.
“Boss?”
“He talks later.”
Riley understood.
Dominic wasn’t choosing mercy.
He was choosing answers over revenge.
They reached the garage.
Three armored SUVs waited.
Dominic’s oldest captain, Frank Russo, stood beside them with eight armed men.
“Where are we going?” Riley asked.
Dominic opened a door.
“Somewhere Salvatore doesn’t know.”
Frank shook his head.
“There is nowhere Salvatore doesn’t know.”
Dominic considered that.
“Then we go somewhere he would never expect.”
Twenty minutes later, Riley stared through the windshield.
“You cannot be serious.”
They had returned to Hayes Prime Cuts.
Or what remained of it.
“Everyone assumes you’d run from here,” Dominic said.
“So naturally we sleep in a burned butcher shop.”
“There’s a basement.”
“It smells like smoke.”
“I’ve slept in worse places.”
“I’m sure that’s very comforting on your dating profile.”
Dominic looked at her.
Marco laughed.
Dominic slowly turned toward him.
Marco became fascinated with the dashboard.
They entered through the alley.
The basement had survived.
Riley found emergency blankets and bottled water.
Dominic sat against the wall while Marco coordinated loyal crews.
By 4:00 a.m., the shape of the betrayal became clear.
Nearly a third of Dominic’s organization had defected to Salvatore.
Two warehouses had been seized.
Three accounts frozen.
A captain was dead.
Dominic listened to every report without visible reaction.
Riley finally took his phone away.
He stared at her.
“Give that back.”
“No.”
“Riley.”
“You’re bleeding.”
He looked down.
A bullet had grazed his ribs during the escape.
“I’m fine.”
“You people really love that sentence.”
She ordered him to remove his shirt.
Dominic raised an eyebrow.
“For medical reasons.”
“Disappointing.”
“Keep talking and I’ll use rubbing alcohol.”
He obeyed.
Riley cleaned the wound.
Up close, she saw scars.
Old bullet wound.
Knife scar.
Surgical line near his abdomen.
“You collect these?”
“Occupational hazard.”
“Get another occupation.”
His smile faded.
“Maybe.”
Riley looked at him.
That answer had been too sincere.
“Why protect me?”
“I told you.”
“No. You could give me the evidence and send me somewhere. Instead you’re losing people, property, money.”
Dominic studied her.
“My father spent years trying to expose Salvatore. Yours died because he helped him.”
“That explains revenge.”
“Not everything is revenge.”
“Then what?”
He looked at her hands.
Strong hands.
Scarred knuckles.
A small burn near her thumb.
“The first night I entered this shop, I thought fear was respect.”
Riley remained quiet.
“You put a knife against my throat.”
“You deserved it.”
“Yes.”
That answer surprised her.
Dominic continued.
“And afterward, I started asking why Tony believed he could behave the way he did while carrying my authority.”
Riley wrapped gauze around his ribs.
“What did you decide?”
“That an empire where the weakest person fears your name more than the worst person does isn’t control.”
He met her eyes.
“It’s failure.”
Riley tied the bandage.
“That almost sounded like personal growth.”
“Don’t spread it around.”
She smiled.
This time, fully.
Dominic stared a second too long.
Riley noticed.
The smile disappeared.
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“That.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You looked.”
“I’m allowed to look.”
“Not like that.”
“How did I look?”
She opened her mouth.
Nothing came.
Dominic leaned closer.
Not touching.
Giving her room to retreat.
She didn’t.
Their faces were inches apart when Marco came down the stairs.
“I have—”
He stopped.
Dominic closed his eyes.
Riley stood abruptly.
“What?”
Marco looked delighted.
“Terrible timing, apparently.”
“Marco.”
“Right. Evidence.”
He placed a laptop on the table.
The flash drive contained coordinates.
One location belonged to an abandoned Castelli cold-storage warehouse near the river.
Dominic frowned.
“My father owned it.”
“Until the year he died,” Marco said.
“Then Salvatore convinced me to sell it.”
“To whom?”
Marco rotated the laptop.
Riley read the corporation name.
Hayes Agricultural Holdings.
Her expression changed.
“That isn’t mine.”
“No,” Marco said. “But it was created using your father’s Social Security number.”
Thomas Hayes had secretly purchased Lorenzo Castelli’s warehouse.
Dominic stood.
“That’s where they hid it.”
“Whatever ‘it’ is,” Riley said.
Marco’s phone vibrated.
He checked the message.
Then looked at Riley.
“We have another problem.”
“What now?”
“Police received an anonymous tip.”
Riley sighed.
“Of course they did.”
“It wasn’t about Tony.”
Marco handed her the phone.
A photograph filled the screen.
A shallow grave.
Human remains.
And a sign marking the property.
HAYES PRIME CUTS — REAR LOT
Riley’s face drained.
“They found a body behind my shop?”
Marco nodded.
Dominic looked at the image.
“Identification?”
“Preliminary dental records.”
Marco hesitated.
“Carlo Benedetti.”
One of the five men from the photograph.
Riley stared at the burned ceiling above them.
Tony’s murder could be framed on her.
But Carlo Benedetti had disappeared seventeen years ago.
When Riley was sixteen.
Then she remembered something.
“My father poured concrete behind the shop that summer.”
Dominic looked at her.
“Did he do it himself?”
“No.”
“Who arranged the contractor?”
Riley thought back.
Her father had complained about the work for weeks.
A family friend had organized everything.
A man Riley had called Uncle Sal when she was a child.
May you like
She looked at Dominic.
“Salvatore.”
