Chapter 9 - Cleansing the Sanctuary
The baby let out a soft yawn, her eyelids fluttering with infant exhaustion, her tiny fingers loosening their grip on Dominic’s cufflink as she nestled her cheek deeper into the black wool of his vest.
Dominic looked down at her with a tenderness that defied every rumor whispered about him in the dark alleys of Cook County. He adjusted his arm, cradling her head against his bicep, before turning his gaze back to the oak desk.
With his free right hand, Dominic reached for the encrypted satellite handset resting beside the brass lamp.
He entered an eight-digit administrative override code. The screen flashed amber, connecting immediately to an unmonitored line.
“Speak,” a gravelly voice answered on the first ring—Marcus, Dominic’s personal head of tactical security, who had served the Caruso family for twenty-five years.
“Marcus,” Dominic commanded, his voice dropping into that chilling, subterranean register that signaled an immediate execution. “Lock down the perimeter of the estate. No vehicle enters or exits the gates without my personal biometric clearance.”
“Understood, Boss. What’s the threat level?”
“Level Red,” Dominic answered, his dark eyes fixed on the white gardenias across the desk. “Pull the encrypted communication logs from the Gary warehouse operation eighteen months ago. Filter every transmission routed through Capo Sal Lucese’s private terminal.”
There was a half-second pause on the line—the sound of an experienced soldier recognizing the scent of blood. “Lucese? Boss, Lucese is having dinner with the commercial shipping delegates at the Palmer House right now.”
“Not anymore,” Dominic said, his tone flat as an open grave. “Have Santino and four men take him from the private dining room through the service kitchen. Strip him of his phone, his keys, and his weapons. Bring him to the cold storage facility at the southern rail yards. I will be there at midnight to conduct the debriefing myself.”
“And his crew?”
“Disarm them,” Dominic ordered. “Anyone who reaches for a holster stays on the pavement. Clean the table, Marcus.”
“Consider it done, Don Caruso.”
Click.
Dominic set the handset down onto the desk blotter.
The treason that had cost Julian his life was finally in the crosshairs. Sal Lucese—the childhood friend who had stood beside Dominic at Julian’s empty grave, weeping crocodile tears while carrying a seven-figure kickback from the Marcone syndicate in his pocket—would discover before sunrise what the price of Caruso blood truly was.
Dominic slowly rose from the leather executive chair.
He stood at his full, imposing height of six feet two inches, his broad shoulders squared, carrying the nine-month-old infant against his chest as effortlessly as if she were a bundle of silk.
He walked around the heavy oak desk, his polished shoes clicking softly against the marble, stopping three feet from where Hannah stood trembling in her gray uniform.
Hannah looked up at him, her brown eyes wide, her breath held in her throat.
Dominic looked down at her. He reached out with his large, scarred right hand, his fingers touching the starched white linen of her maid’s apron.
With a slow, deliberate motion, Dominic caught the knot of the apron at her waist and untied it.
May you like
He pulled the white fabric free, folding it in his hand, and tossed it casually onto the edge of the mahogany desk like a piece of discarded scrap.
“You do not wear an apron in this house, Hannah,” Dominic said, his gravelly voice rich with an unshakeable, sovereign authority. “You are the mother of a Caruso. From this moment on, you bow your head to no one.”
