Chapter 10 - ASHES OF EMPIRES
The cleanup took weeks. The fall of the Romano family left a vacuum, but no one dared to fill it. The brutal efficiency and absolute destruction Dominic had unleashed terrified the remaining families into absolute submission. No one would ever touch a hair on Isabella Moretti's head.
Dominic, however, had taken a bullet to his side during the raid—a ricochet he hadn't noticed until the adrenaline faded. He spent two weeks in a private hospital wing, heavily guarded.
Isabella barely left his side. She sat in the oversized visitor chair, reading to him from her picture books, her small voice a soothing balm to the violence that still echoed in his mind.
"You got a boo-boo because of me," she said one afternoon, looking at his bandages.
"No," Dominic corrected, reaching out to hold her hand. "I got a boo-boo because bad men make bad choices. You are the reason I survived. You are the reason I came back."
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While in the hospital bed, Dominic made the final decisions. He transferred control of the street-level operations to his capos, strictly forbidding human trafficking and narcotics. He moved the bulk of his wealth into legitimate real estate and construction. The mafia boss who had ruled through terror was stepping into the shadows, making way for a businessman who fought in boardrooms instead of alleys.
He was building an empire that could survive in the light, one that Isabella could inherit without blood on her hands.
