Chapter 8 - Blood and Iron
Dominic walked back into the brightly lit foyer of the main house, his clothes soaked through, water dripping from his hair onto the marble floor.
He didn't bother changing. He walked straight to the east wing and punched the biometric override code for the master suite panic room.
The heavy steel door slid open with a pneumatic hiss.
Sophia was sitting on the edge of the leather sofa inside the secure room, rocking Emma, who had finally fallen back asleep against her chest. When she saw Dominic standing in the doorway—his knuckles bruised, rainwater streaming down his face—she gasped.
“Dominic… are you hurt?” she asked, her voice trembling as she stood up.
“I’m fine,” he said, his voice raspy. “The blood isn't mine.”
Sophia walked toward him, stopping just inches away. She reached out with a trembling hand, her fingers gently touching the dark bruise forming along his jawline.
“They had guns,” she whispered, tears spilling over her lashes. “I saw them on the monitors. You could have been killed.”
“People have been trying to kill me for fifteen years, Sophia,” Dominic replied softly, looking down into her hazel eyes. “They always fail.”
“Why did you do it?” she asked, her voice breaking. “You didn't owe us anything. We were just employees. I was just the maid who ruined your shirt.”
Dominic gently caught her hand, pulling her fingers away from his jaw and holding them in his large, warm palm.
“The first time I saw you in my laundry room, standing on a chair with red knuckles, trying to do a job you weren't well enough to do because you were terrified of losing your home… something shifted,” Dominic confessed, his usual eloquence faltering slightly. “I spent my entire life building walls to keep the world out. I thought power and fear were the only things that mattered.”
He stepped closer, closing the remaining distance between them.
“Then your daughter made me a paper crown and told me I looked like a monster who could be tamed with cookies. And I realized I didn't want to be a monster anymore. Not to you. Not to her.”
Sophia’s breath caught in her throat. The air between them crackled with an intensity that had nothing to do with danger and everything to do with raw, undeniable emotion.
“Derek is gone, Sophia,” Dominic said, his dark eyes locking onto hers with fierce devotion. “He will never bother you again. You and Emma are free.”
Sophia looked up at the terrifying, ruthless mafia boss of Lake Forest—the man who commanded syndicates and terrified politicians—and saw only the man who had stayed up all night making sure her daughter had cartoons and pancakes.
“Free,” she whispered, a watery smile breaking through her tears.
Dominic reached up, his thumb gently wiping away a tear from her cheek. His touch was shockingly tender, belying the calloused hands of a man who held power over life and death.
“Stay,” Dominic murmured, his voice dropping to a rough caress. “Stay here. Not as staff. Not as guests. Stay with me.”
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Sophia didn't answer with words. Instead, she leaned forward, pressing her forehead against his chest, her arms wrapping around his waist as she breathed in the scent of rain, cedar, and home.
In the corner of the room, Emma stirred slightly in her sleep, clutching her stuffed rabbit, entirely safe for the first time in her life.
