Chapter 5 - The Eruption of a King
Dominic’s reaction was explosive.
He lunged forward, his heavy thigh striking the mahogany chair so violently that the heavy leather seat scraped across the marble floor with a screech that sounded like tearing metal. The decanter of Barolo tipped, spilling dark red wine across the damask linen like fresh arterial blood, but no one moved to catch it.
"Boss!" Marco shouted, his hand instinctively unholstering his Glock as the other bodyguards drew their weapons in unison, training their sights on the doors and corners, uncertain what threat had just materialized inside the room.
Dominic ignored them completely. He closed the remaining distance between himself and Mara in a single, terrifying stride, cutting off her escape route, trapping her against the mirrored sideboard. He towered over her, his broad shoulders blotting out the light of the crystal chandelier, his chest heaving as if he had just sprinted ten miles through broken glass.
His heavily tattooed right hand rose slowly through the air. The fingers were trembling violently, the black claws of the dragon stretching as he reached directly for Mara’s throat.
Mara shrank back, her spine pressing hard into the gilded frame of the mirror behind her. She turned her face away, squeezing her eyes shut, instinctively curling her body inward to shield baby Nico from the violence she was certain was about to rain down upon her. With her right hand, she clutched the silver medallion against her collarbone with white-knuckled desperation, her knuckles bruising against her own skin.
"Please!" she sobbed, the tears finally breaking past her lashes and spilling down her flushed cheeks. "Please don't hurt me! Take the baby! Just don't hurt me!"
Nico, sensing the violent shift in the room's energy, stopped smiling. He let out a tiny, frightened squawk, his little arms tightening around Mara’s neck, his blue eyes turning toward his towering father with sudden distress.
Dominic’s fingers hovered two inches from her hand. Despite the volcanic fury and shock threatening to tear his mind apart, his hand did not strike. He did not choke her; he did not rip the chain from her neck. Instead, his trembling fingers hovered over hers, his voice dropping into a deep, ragged roar that shook the very foundations of the room—a voice that was struggling, with every ounce of iron discipline he possessed, not to completely shatter into pieces.
"WHERE DID YOU GET THAT NECKLACE?!"
The question hit Mara like a physical blow. She opened her eyes, finding Dominic’s face barely inches from hers. Up close, the terrifying mobster did not look angry; he looked haunted. His piercing dark eyes were bloodshot, swimming with an agonizing, raw mixture of grief, disbelief, and terrifying hope. The veins along his neck pulsed against his tattoos like heavy ropes.
"I... I..." Mara choked, her throat constricting around the words.
"Do not lie to me!" Dominic snarled, his voice breaking into a hoarse, desperate rasp that stunned the bodyguards into absolute silence. Marco, standing with his gun drawn, stared at his boss in utter shock—he had never, in twenty years of service, heard Dominic Moretti’s voice crack with emotion. "You tell me the truth right now, or God help me, nobody leaves this building alive! Where did you get the weeping angel?!"
Mara was weeping openly now, her chest heaving as she held the whimpering baby against her heartbeat. She looked into the face of New York’s most feared monster and realized there was no clever lie that could save her. The truth was the only currency she had left.
"My mother gave it to me!" she whispered, her voice trembling so violently that the words were barely audible over Nico's soft cries. "It was hers! She wore it every day of her life!"
Dominic froze.
The roaring in his chest stopped. His hand, suspended in mid-air, stilled completely. The color that had begun to return to his cheeks vanished once more, leaving him as white as freshly poured gypsum. His dark eyes locked onto Mara’s tear-stained face—tracing her high cheekbones, the slight cleft in her chin, the deep, warm amber flecks scattered through her brown irises—features that he had spent twenty-three years trying to erase from his memory.
His breathing turned shallow, ragged, and utterly broken.
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"Your mother..." Dominic whispered, the word carrying a weight that felt like an entire mountain crumbling into the sea. He took a half-step closer, his massive hands reaching out to grip Mara’s trembling shoulders with a gentleness that was entirely foreign to his lethal frame. His voice exploded through the room, not with anger, but with a desperate, agonizing urgency that bordered on madness:
"WHAT IS YOUR MOTHER'S NAME?!"
