Chapter 4 - The Fortress on Fifth
The penthouse occupied the top two floors of an art deco high-rise overlooking the eastern perimeter of Central Park.
It was not the ostentatious, gold-plated lair of an underworld thug. The floors were herringbone parquet, pale oak waxed to a soft sheen. The walls were lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves housing first editions, history texts, and framed architectural blueprints. Vast glass windows framed the slate-gray canopy of the park below, where the bare branches of autumn trees looked like delicate black lace against the sky.
Lily was sitting on a cream-colored velvet sofa that probably cost more than my four-year nursing degree, happily eating strawberries out of a crystal bowl.
Beside her stood Gianni—the scarred man from the car—holding a small plastic plate of powdered donuts, looking terrified that he might drop one on the imported Persian rug.
“Mommy!” Lily squealed, launching herself off the sofa the moment I walked through the double doors.
I caught her in my arms, sinking to the hardwood floor, burying my face in the curve of her neck. She smelled like sugar and cold air. I didn't care that Dominic and three of his men were watching; I squeezed her until she let out a tiny, breathless squeak.
“Are you okay?” I whispered fiercely. “Did anyone scare you?”
“No! Gianni let me ride the elevator with the golden mirror!” she said, pointing a sticky finger at the scarred giant. “And he knows a magic trick where he makes a coin disappear into his ear!”
Gianni cleared his throat, his face turning an extraordinary shade of brick-red beneath his stubble. He looked at Dominic, mortified.
“She was bored, boss,” Gianni muttered.
“Dismissed,” Dominic said quietly, a flicker of amusement passing through his eyes.
Gianni vanished down the hallway with the speed of a man escaping a firing squad.
I stood up, holding Lily on my hip, and turned to face Dominic. The apartment was warm, smelling of woodsmoke from a massive stone fireplace where birch logs crackled steadily, but I felt chilled to the bone.
“You kidnapped my daughter from her school,” I said, my voice shaking with an anger born of sheer terror.
“Her school called Mrs. Delaney to report two men asking questions at the front gate,” Dominic countered, unbuttoning his overcoat and tossing it onto an armchair. “Mrs. Delaney called the number I left on your kitchen table this morning. Gianni had Lily out of the building five minutes before those men could identify her classroom.”
He walked over to a small wet bar, poured two fingers of amber bourbon into a heavy crystal tumbler, and pushed it across the marble counter toward me.
“Drink it.”
“I don't want your liquor.”
“Drink it, Elena. Your shock is turning into hypothermia.”
I glared at him, but my teeth were chattering. I put Lily down, telling her to go look at the books on the lowest shelf, and walked to the counter. I took the glass, my fingers brushing his for a fraction of a second. His skin was warm, completely steady. I tossed the liquid back.
It burned like kerosene going down, blooming into a fierce, comforting heat in my chest. I choked, slamming the glass down.
“Better?” he asked.
“Worse,” I gasped, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. “How long are we supposed to stay in this… this fortress?”
“Until Matteo Bellini is back in federal custody or six feet under the soil,” Dominic replied without hesitation. “My investigators are combing through Julian’s old firm. But unless we find the key, Bellini won't stop. He’s facing a life sentence if those accounts surface. He has nothing left to lose.”
“I told you, Dominic! I don't have it!” I cried, running both hands through my tangled hair. “Julian kept secrets, apparently! He lived a double life! He was a liar, and now he’s dead, and he left his daughter to pay for his sins!”
“He was not a liar,” Dominic said, his voice dropping into a register so dark and forceful that the room seemed to shrink.
He moved around the counter until he stood barely two feet away. He was taller than Julian had been, broader through the shoulders, carrying an aura of absolute, uncompromising authority.
“Julian loved you with an obsession that terrified me,” Dominic said, his gaze drilling into mine. “Do you know why he didn't run to Europe when he found the theft? Why he didn't take five million dollars from Bellini’s slush fund and vanish into South America? Because you loved your work at St. Catherine’s. Because you were proud of that broken-down brownstone your grandmother left you. Because he refused to make you a fugitive.”
Tears burned behind my eyelids, stubborn and hot. “Then why didn't he tell me?”
“Because he knew you,” Dominic murmured, his voice softening unexpectedly, his hand rising as if to brush a stray tear from my cheek before he checked himself, letting it drop back to his side. “He knew that if you knew what was in those ledgers, you would have marched straight into the precinct with them. And they would have killed you before you reached the desk sergeant.”
I looked away, staring out the vast panoramic window. Manhattan stretched below us like an intricate circuit board of gold, red, and white lights, pulsing with life, indifferent to the three people standing in this glass tower.
“I have to go back to work tomorrow,” I whispered. “I have patients.”
“You are not going to St. Catherine’s,” Dominic said flatly. “You will stay here. Lily will stay here. My chef will cook your meals. Gianni will watch the perimeter. You are under my protection now, Elena.”
“And what does that cost me?” I snapped, turning back to him, my chin lifted in defiance. “Nobody gets protection from a Moretti for free. What do you want from me, Dominic?”
Dominic stepped closer, until I could smell the faint scent of sandalwood, clean rain, and tobacco clinging to his shirt.
May you like
“I want Julian’s debt settled,” he said, his voice a low, steady vibration against my skin. “And after that… I want to take you to dinner. Properly this time.”
***
