Chapter 1 - SEVEN BULLETS
Three hours before Dominic Rossi married me, I was carrying champagne for people who spent more on watches than my mother had left in her retirement account.
I was twenty-six, exhausted, and working a catering shift at the Aster Crown Hotel because the four hundred dollars would cover one more cardiology appointment for my mother, Ellen. I had taken the job from a friend who had the flu. I knew almost nothing about the private gala except that the guest list included bankers, politicians, developers, nightclub owners, and several men the hotel staff had been warned not to photograph.
The ballroom glittered beneath chandeliers the size of small cars. White roses climbed mirrored columns. A string quartet played near the stage while waiters moved in practiced lines between tables.
I had been awake since five that morning.
My feet hurt.
My mother had called during my break to tell me not to worry about her.
That, of course, made me worry more.
I was balancing a tray of champagne when one glass began sliding toward the edge. A hand appeared and caught it before it fell.
“Careful,” a deep voice said.
I looked up.
Dominic Rossi.
I knew the name because everyone in New York knew the name, even people who pretended they did not. Officially, Rossi Holdings owned shipping terminals, restaurants, construction companies, and half a dozen luxury properties. Unofficially, there were stories people lowered their voices to tell.
He was taller than I expected, broad-shouldered in a midnight tuxedo, dark hair brushed back from his face, a faint scar near his jaw. His eyes were black enough to look almost colorless under the ballroom lights.
“You’re new,” he said.
“Is that a crime?”
His eyebrow lifted.
I immediately regretted speaking.
Before I could apologize, the silver-haired woman beside him laughed.
“Dominic, stop frightening the staff.”
She was elegant, probably in her early sixties, wearing emerald earrings and the kind of confidence money cannot buy because it has to be practiced for decades.
“I wasn’t frightened,” I said.
Dominic’s mouth almost moved.
Almost.
The woman smiled at me.
“I’m Isabella Rossi.”
“I know.”
“Then you also know my son has forgotten how to smile in public.”
Dominic looked at her.
“I smile.”
“Not since 2019.”
I tried not to laugh.
Isabella noticed how tightly I was holding the tray.
“You look pale, sweetheart.”
“I’m fine.”
“That answer means no.”
She touched my wrist gently.
“Go drink water before you fall over. Nobody should have to faint for rich people.”
It was maybe ten seconds of kindness.
Ten seconds.
Thirty minutes later, those ten seconds nearly killed me.
I was returning from the service corridor with another tray when I noticed a man in a catering jacket moving the wrong direction.
Staff had a rhythm.
He did not.
He moved against the flow, shoulder turned slightly, one hand hidden beneath his coat.
At first I thought he was stealing something.
Then I followed his eyes.
Isabella.
She stood near the center of the ballroom speaking to a judge and an older man with a cane.
The catering man drew a gun.
I did not think.
I screamed.
“GET DOWN!”
The tray left my hands.
Champagne exploded across the marble.
I ran.
Someone shouted.
The first gunshot sounded unreal, too loud to belong inside a room decorated with roses.
I slammed into Isabella and drove her toward the floor.
The second shot struck a mirror.
The third hit me.
There was no dramatic pain at first.
Only force.
A terrible punch near my ribs.
Then another.
And another.
My body jerked against Isabella’s as I covered her.
She was screaming my name even though I did not remember telling her what it was.
Maybe someone had.
Maybe I imagined it.
The ballroom turned into fragments.
Shoes running across marble.
Glass breaking.
Men shouting.
A chandelier trembling overhead.
Blood spreading beneath my uniform.
I remember thinking stupidly that my manager was going to charge me for the torn blouse.
Then another bullet hit my arm.
Another struck somewhere low.
By then, the screaming had disappeared beneath a high ringing inside my skull.
Still, I stayed over Isabella.
I do not know why.
Maybe because she had told me to drink water.
Maybe because my mother raised me to move toward people who needed help.
Maybe because sometimes a life changes before the brain can vote.
A different gun cracked from across the ballroom.
The shooter fell.
Then Dominic was above me.
His face had changed completely.
The controlled man from the champagne tray was gone.
He dropped to his knees in blood without hesitation.
“Move,” he ordered someone.
Hands pressed against my side.
Someone tore open a medical kit.
I coughed.
Pain arrived all at once.
It was everywhere.
Dominic leaned closer.
“Stay with me.”
“The lady,” I whispered.
“What?”
“Your mother.”
“She’s alive.”
I tried to turn my head.
Isabella was behind him, held upright by another man, crying.
Our eyes met.
“Good,” I said.
Then the ceiling went black.
What happened afterward was told to me in pieces over several weeks.
Dominic refused to wait for the ambulance.
He had his men carry me through the hotel kitchen to an armored SUV because the nearest emergency unit was eight minutes away and the ambulance dispatcher estimated eleven.
He apparently threatened three traffic officers, two hospital administrators, and one surgeon.
The surgeon later told me Dominic did not actually threaten him.
“He just looked at me,” Dr. Patel said, “and somehow I understood failure was not preferred.”
I had been shot seven times.
One bullet shattered part of my forearm.
Two passed through soft tissue.
Four remained inside me because removing them immediately would have caused more damage than leaving them.
For six hours, surgeons fought to stabilize me.
My heart stopped once.
Only briefly.
Long enough for Isabella to begin praying in the hallway.
Long enough for Dominic to call a priest.
That part mattered later.
While I was unconscious, Dominic’s people identified the shooter as a contract gunman linked to Victor Costa, a rival with enough money and hatred to make revenge into a profession.
The attack had been intended for Isabella.
I had ruined it.
Then someone leaked to Costa that I survived.
According to Enzo Bellini, Dominic’s closest lieutenant, that changed everything.
A dead waitress was a tragedy.
A living witness who had publicly saved Isabella Rossi was a symbol.
And Victor Costa hated symbols he did not control.
“Then protect her,” Isabella demanded outside intensive care.
“For how long?” Dominic asked.
“As long as necessary.”
Enzo had brought Dominic a folder.
My folder.
A file containing my address, my mother’s medical facility, my bank debt, old employment records, and a photograph of me leaving a Cleveland courthouse when I was nineteen.
Information Dominic possessed before the shooting.
He looked through the ICU glass at my unconscious body.
Then he closed the folder.
“Get me a priest.”
Isabella stared at him.
“Dominic.”
“What?”
“What are you doing?”
His answer changed my life while I was still too unconscious to know I had one.
“I’m marrying her.”
Enzo grabbed his arm outside my door.
“Boss, if she survives and learns why you already had a file on her, she’ll never forgive you.”
Dominic stopped.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then he looked through the glass at me again.
May you like
“First,” he said, “she has to survive long enough to hate me.”
And with seven bullets still inside my body, Dominic Rossi walked into my ICU room carrying a gold ring.
