Chapter 2 - THE LINING OF BETRAYAL
Dominic Cavalli’s massive, scarred chest heaved. Blood dripped steadily from the puncture wound on his shoulder, staining the white cuffs of his discarded shirt. His pitch-black eyes were locked onto Iris, demanding an answer that Marcus was desperate she wouldn't give.
Iris’s throat was dry as dust. She looked past Dominic’s massive frame to the mirror. Marcus had raised his suppressed pistol, aiming it squarely at the back of Iris’s head.
"She's a spy for the Moretti family, boss," Marcus lied, his voice slick with manufactured panic. "She just tried to assassinate you. Let me put her down."
Dominic didn’t look back at his underboss. He didn’t even blink. He just stared at Iris’s trembling hands. He noticed the heavy steel shears resting on the table, inches from her grip. She hadn't reached for the weapon. She had reached for a pin.
"If she wanted me dead, Marcus," Dominic rumbled, his voice dropping an octave, "she would have gone for the carotid with the shears. Not the shoulder with a sewing needle."
Iris swallowed hard. "The jacket," she choked out, her voice barely a whisper. "The center back vent."
Dominic finally broke eye contact with her. He looked down at the charcoal-grey suit jacket pooled on the Persian rug. Slowly, deliberately, he knelt. He didn't pick it up. He just pressed two thick fingers against the Bemberg silk lining where Iris had indicated.
The silence in the shop was suffocating. Iris saw the exact moment the apex predator realized he was standing in a trap. The muscles in Dominic's jaw bunched like coiled steel.
Marcus knew he was caught.
With a desperate, animalistic grunt, the underboss pivoted his gun away from Iris and aimed directly at Dominic’s kneeling form.
"Dominic!" Iris screamed, throwing herself behind the heavy oak cutting table.
Thwip. Thwip.
Two suppressed shots shattered the antique three-way mirror, raining glass over the floor. But Dominic was already moving. In a blur of calculated violence, he surged upward, hurling the heavy wooden chair holding his dress shirt directly into Marcus’s chest.
Marcus stumbled backward, the gun discharging a third time into the ceiling. Before he could recover, Dominic closed the distance. The mob boss grabbed Marcus’s wrist, twisting it until a sickening snap echoed through the shop. The gun clattered to the floor. Dominic slammed his forearm into Marcus’s throat, pinning him against the wall of expensive tweed bolts.
"Who?" Dominic whispered, pressing his forearm harder, crushing the traitor’s windpipe. "Who paid you to wire my clothes, Marcus?"
Marcus gasped for air, his face turning purple, blood dribbling from his lips. He smiled a wet, horrifying smile. "You're already dead, Dom. The old man... he wants the boy."
Dominic’s face went entirely pale. The cold, unshakeable mob boss suddenly looked terrified. With a brutal twist, Dominic incapacitated Marcus, dropping him unconscious to the floor.
Iris crawled out from under the table, shaking uncontrollably. "Please," she sobbed, clutching her grandfather’s silver measuring tape around her neck like a rosary. "Just leave. Take your suit and go."
Dominic turned to her, his chest heaving. He knelt by Marcus’s unconscious body and pulled something from the traitor's pocket. He tossed it onto the cutting table in front of Iris.
It was a heavy, solid gold money clip. But it wasn't a mob crest engraved on it.
May you like
Iris stared at it, her heart stopping. It was the Bellamy family crest. The exact same crest hanging above her shop’s door.
"Your grandfather didn't owe the bank fifty thousand dollars, Iris," Dominic said, his voice laced with cold dread. "He owed my uncle. And your family just paid it off by helping them try to murder me. Grab your coat. If we don't leave right now, we both burn."
