Shattered Vows Romano Revenge - Full Story

Upstairs, the music stopped abruptly.

I pressed my ear against the bottom wood panel of the basement door, ignoring the agony in my torso.

"What the hell is that?" Barrett’s voice boomed from the foyer, laced with annoyed indignation. "Who is driving on our lawn?"

Taryn’s voice trembled. "Barrett... look out the front window. There are five black SUVs. They... they just rammed the iron gate."

"Rammed the gate?" Barrett scoffed, though a tremor of genuine fear leaked into his tone. "Call the police! Who do these thugs think they are?"

Before Barrett could finish his sentence, a sound like a grenade detonation shattered the silence of the mansion.

BOOM!

The massive solid mahogany front entrance of the Greenwich mansion didn't just open—it was breached. The splintering of heavy oak echoed down the hallway, followed by the heavy, rhythmic thud of tactical boots marching onto the pristine Italian marble floor.

"What is the meaning of this?!" Barrett screamed, his voice cracking into a high register. "This is private property! I am Barrett Hayes! Do you have any idea who my family is?"

A calm, deep, gravelly voice cut through Barrett’s screaming like a meat cleaver through soft fat.

"Where is my daughter?"

It was a voice I hadn't heard in two decades, yet it instantly set every drop of blood in my body on fire. My father.

"Your... your daughter?" Barrett stammered. "What are you talking about? Who are you people? Get out of my house before I have the state police wipe you out!"

A heavy slap echoed through the foyer—crisp, brutal, and unmistakable.

"Aah!" Barrett wailed, tumbling onto the hard marble. "You hit me! You crazy bastard, you hit me!"

"I asked you a question, boy," Dominic Romano said, his tone terrifyingly quiet, devoid of any anger, which made it ten times more lethal. "Where is Mallory?"

"Barrett, help!" Taryn shrieked from upstairs. "There are men with guns! They're in the hallway!"

"Rocco," Dominic ordered calmly. "Search the house. Every room. Every closet. If anyone raises a finger, put a bullet in their knee."

"Yes, Don Dominic," a rough, gravelly voice replied.

I pounded my fists against the basement door with all the strength left in my battered body. "Dad! Dad, I'm down here! In the basement!"

The sound of heavy footsteps sprinted down the kitchen hallway.

"Mallory!" my father's voice was suddenly right behind the door. "Stand back from the frame, sweetheart."

"It's locked!" I cried out. "He locked it from the outside!"

"Rocco," Dominic said softly.

A second later, a kick smashed into the heavy brass deadbolt. The wood splintered instantly, the frame giving way like dry twigs. The door swung open, revealing the bright light of the kitchen above.

And there stood my father.

Dominic Romano was in his late sixties now, his hair silver and slicked back, wearing a bespoke tailored charcoal suit with a dark crimson tie. His dark eyes were like cold steel, lines of unyielding power etched deep into his face. Behind him stood six towering men in tailored black overcoats, their expressions cold and stone-hard.

He stepped down into the dark basement, his expensive leather shoes crunching on the dust. When his eyes landed on me—lying curled on the floor, clutching my fractured ribs, my cheek bruised, my dress torn—a visible tremor passed through his rigid frame.

For a split second, the fearsome underworld don vanished, and only a heartbroken father remained.

"Oh, my little star," he whispered, kneeling down beside me with surprising gentleness. He reached out, his big, calloused hands framing my face like I was made of fragile porcelain. "Look what they did to you..."

"Dad," I sobbed, the tears finally overflowing, burning my cheeks. "He broke my ribs... he kicked me..."

Dominic pulled off his heavy cashmere coat and wrapped it around my shaking shoulders. "Shh. It's over now, Mallory. Nobody will ever hurt you again."

He carefully lifted me into his arms. Even at sixty-eight, he moved with effortless power. As he carried me up the basement stairs into the lit hallway, Barrett was sitting on the floor, held down by two massive men, his lip bleeding and his face pale as paper.

Taryn was cowering behind a marble pillar, clutching my silk robe around her naked body, weeping hysterically.

When Barrett looked up and saw Dominic carrying me, his eyes widened in confusion, then in sudden, paralyzing recognition as he caught sight of the signet ring on my father's pinky finger—a crest well-known in the darkest, most powerful circles of the East Coast.

"Dominic... Romano?" Barrett breathed, his face draining of all color. "No... no, that's impossible. Mallory's father is dead... she said her father was..."

Dominic stopped right in front of Barrett. He looked down at my husband as if he were a cockroach crawling across his shoe.

"Twenty-five years ago," Dominic said in a low, terrifying growl, "your father, Arthur Hayes, came to my office in Brooklyn, begging on his knees for me not to foreclose on his bankrupt estate. I spared him out of pity."

Dominic stepped closer, his boots inches from Barrett’s trembling jaw.

"And tonight, his pathetic excuse for a son laid his boots on my daughter."

"I... I didn't know!" Barrett shrieked, tears of sheer terror streaming down his face. "Mallory never told me! I swear, sir, it was a mistake! She fell down the stairs! Ask her! She fell!"