Chapter 7 - THE WIFE WHO REFUSED TO OBEY
Victor Costa did not look like a monster.
That was the first thing that bothered me.
He looked like a successful man in his late fifties who might sit on a hospital board or complain politely about wine temperature. Silver hair. Dark overcoat. Expensive gloves.
Only his eyes were wrong.
They were empty in the way of someone who had spent too long learning that consequences belonged to other people.
Matteo stood beside him.
His gun pointed at the floor, but his finger rested near the trigger.
Father Michael sat ten feet away, wrists tied, blood dried beneath one nostril.
Dominic stepped half a pace in front of me.
Victor smiled.
“There he is. Antonio’s prince.”
Dominic’s voice was flat.
“Let the priest go.”
“The ledger.”
“Priest first.”
Victor looked at me.
“What do you think, Mara? Your father loved bargaining.”
My skin crawled hearing my name in his mouth.
“You murdered him.”
Victor tilted his head.
“I corrected a business problem.”
Dominic moved.
Only slightly.
Matteo raised the gun.
“Don’t.”
Dominic looked at his uncle.
“You were at his funeral.”
Matteo’s face tightened.
“So were you.”
“I was sixteen.”
“And I was tired of burying people because your father refused to compromise.”
Isabella’s suspicion had been right.
Matteo had sold information for years.
He had told Costa Daniel planned to run.
He had helped identify the construction site.
He had leaked the Lake Bell connection tonight.
I felt suddenly sick.
My father had trusted the wrong Rossi too.
Victor extended one hand.
“The case.”
Dominic held it.
“No.”
Victor smiled.
“Still stubborn.”
He nodded toward Father Michael.
Matteo pressed the muzzle against the priest’s shoulder.
“No!” I shouted.
Pain tore through my ribs.
Dominic looked at me.
I held out my hand.
“Give me the case.”
“No.”
“Dominic.”
“Mara.”
“This is my father’s ledger.”
“It is also a trap.”
“I know.”
Victor laughed softly.
“This marriage is going beautifully.”
I ignored him.
“Give it to me.”
Dominic’s jaw worked.
Then he handed me the case.
That decision mattered more than he knew.
Not because I wanted control of the ledger.
Because he finally trusted me with danger instead of deciding danger for me.
I walked forward.
Every step hurt.
The terminal floor seemed to tilt under my feet.
Victor watched me approach.
“Seven bullets and still difficult.”
“My mother says I was difficult before the bullets.”
He almost smiled.
When I reached the marked line on the floor, I stopped.
“Let him go.”
“Open the case.”
“No.”
Victor’s expression changed.
“Excuse me?”
“My father died because he thought one copy of truth was enough.”
I lifted the case slightly.
“His mistake.”
Victor glanced at Dominic.
“What did she do?”
Dominic said nothing.
I answered.
“The ledger has already been scanned.”
Matteo swore.
Victor’s face hardened.
“Copies are scheduled to release if I don’t cancel the upload.”
“Bluff.”
“Maybe.”
I looked toward Father Michael.
“If you kill him, you become tomorrow’s headline.”
Victor laughed.
“And if I kill you?”
“Same problem.”
His eyes narrowed.
I had his attention.
That was the point.
Behind me, unseen from Victor’s angle, Enzo’s team was moving through a service corridor.
We needed another ninety seconds.
I started talking.
“You know what I don’t understand?”
Victor smiled thinly.
“What?”
“My father was an accountant.”
“He was annoying.”
“He had a wife, a kid, a plan to leave. You could have let him go.”
“He had leverage.”
“So you killed him because you were afraid.”
That hit.
His face changed.
“Careful.”
“You were afraid of numbers in a notebook.”
Matteo looked uneasy.
Victor stepped closer.
“You think courage is jumping in front of bullets?”
“No.”
“What is it?”
“Living with what you did when everyone finally knows.”
His eyes became flat.
“You sound like Daniel.”
“Good.”
He drew a gun.
Dominic moved instantly.
So did Matteo.
Everything happened at once.
Father Michael threw himself sideways with the chair.
A shot cracked.
Dominic slammed into me and drove us behind a concrete pillar.
Pain exploded through my healing wounds.
I screamed.
Gunfire erupted from the service corridor.
Enzo’s men rushed in.
Matteo shouted something I could not hear.
Victor fired toward the pillar.
Dominic covered my body with his.
For one wild second, the symmetry of it struck me.
I had covered Isabella.
Now he covered me.
“Get off,” I gasped.
“No.”
“You’re heavy.”
“This is not the time.”
“Apparently there is never a good time with you.”
He looked at me like I had lost my mind.
Maybe I had.
Then Matteo screamed.
Silence followed in pieces.
One gun dropped.
Then another.
Enzo shouted, “Clear left!”
Someone cut Father Michael free.
Dominic lifted his head.
Victor was gone.
A rear door swung open into the snow.
Matteo lay near the far wall, wounded in the thigh, his weapon several feet away.
Dominic stood.
I grabbed his sleeve.
“No.”
He looked down.
“He’s escaping.”
“Let Enzo go.”
“He killed your father.”
“Victor ordered it.”
“He threatened your mother.”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you stopping me?”
Because I knew what he wanted.
Not capture.
Not justice.
Blood.
I had seen that look before in people who believed grief gave them permission to become whatever hurt them.
“My father already lost his life to Victor Costa,” I said. “He doesn’t get yours too.”
Dominic stared at me.
Snow blew through the open door behind him.
Then he slowly lowered the gun in his hand.
He had drawn it without me noticing.
Enzo ran past toward the rear exit with two men.
Dominic stayed.
With me.
That choice mattered too.
Paramedics entered minutes later.
My medical monitor had triggered the emergency team waiting outside.
Dr. Patel arrived furious enough to resurrect the dead simply to lecture them.
“You tore two internal sutures,” he told me.
“Only two?”
He looked at Dominic.
“Sedate her.”
“I support that,” Dominic said.
I pointed at him.
“You are still annulled.”
“We were never legally valid.”
“What?”
He blinked.
Apparently, this was not how he planned to tell me.
I stared.
“Dominic.”
He sighed.
“The emergency proxy paperwork never finalized.”
“So the marriage—”
“Religious only.”
“You let me think—”
“I told you legal documents were prepared. I did not say filed.”
“You manipulative—”
The sedative entered my IV.
The room softened.
My last coherent thought was that if I survived long enough, Dominic Rossi was going to learn what true danger looked like.
Me.
May you like
Awake.
With a lawyer.
