Chapter 33

Domenico held the phone to his ear and listened. The line cracked a little before the voice spoke to him from the other end of the phone.

"Why call this in now?" It was the man who had been in the room with Nicole, on the verge of teaching her a lesson she'd never forget when the call came in to have her taken back to the mansion with immediate effect.

Domenic told the man plainly, not caring that the man was disappointed.

"That doesn't matter. What matters is the message. I was hoping to send a message to someone and I think he's gotten it. You have done your part and you let that go."

Then without waiting for a response, he began talking about other things. "We need to know who helped then. Find every man tied to us. Pull them all. Check everyone. We need to make sure the traitor is found as soon as possible. I don't want any exceptions, no matter who they are. Is that clearly understood?" There was a pause on the line before the man finally answered.

"Understood. We will start right away."

Domenico hung up and even though he didn't want to ascribe any meaning to the call, he couldn't help the cold feeling it left inside his chest. He let out a slow breath, trying to push the dark swirl of anger down. He'd sent men to search.

He had sent men to find the leak. He'd sent a message by action. But beneath all that, he couldn't stop thinking about the girl. About Lucy. He sat down hard on the bed, not looking at the nurses who were back to reattach his IV lines after they'd warned him not to take it off but he ignored them and did it anyway.

They approached him carefully like he was some sort of plague. As they did their job, the thoughts returned. The face that haunted him was not just hers. It was someone else's folded into hers- and that his mother's. As he shut his eyes, the memory came back clear and sharp like he was experiencing it for the first time again. He'd been very young.

Too young to take much but the sound and the fear... it still haunted him. For safety, his family kept women hidden away. They didn't move in public. They were protected like treasures in a vault and once in a rare while, Domenico had been allowed to go out with his mother.

That day was one of those rare trips he always looked forward to. He could count how many trips they'd gone on before. That was how rare it was. On that particular trip, they'd been in a mall.

He could remember the bright lights and the shiny floors. They'd been looking at shoes. His father got him lots of them, but she wanted something to make him remember her and have her in his mind until their next rare trip.

A keepsake basically. His mother had put her arm around him as they walked through the mall. She'd asked the guards to be outside since little Domenico wasn't comfortable with the guards always breathing down their shoulders.

He wanted a moment when he would be able to live his life without having to be followed or watched. And this was one of those moments he could actually enjoy living a normal life. He'd felt safe. He'd felt like any other boy with his mother. But that changed a few seconds later when a man with a mask rushed into the mall.

"Everybody on the ground!" The man yelled. The mall stopped breathing instantly. People scattered, pushing some of the goods to fall. He could remember the sound of glasses shattering from the pandemonium. The robber fired a shot into the air, sending more chaos around the room. Everyone was screaming, ducking and running for cover.

"Down! Get down!" The robber screamed. His voice was wild and raw, and desperate too. Domenico's father had taught him how to read people, so much that despite the chaos that was going on, he still thought clearly.

He wasn't scared. As the man screamed at them to get down again, the crowd obeyed. Everyone went down on the floor, their hands over their heads and their faces pressed to the tile. The panic rose like a wave.

Domenico's small body was pressed against his mother's. The woman pulled him close, wrapping a fierce arm around him and shielding him as she searched for the panic button she was supposed to press should anything like this happen.

They crouched in front of the shoe display. Being pressed against the display, he remembered the smell of the glue and the lights hot above them. He also remembered his mother's breath. She was scared. Very scared.

The robber soon spotted them and the moment he did, the man went wild. He pointed his gun at them and in a higher voice he yelled.

"Get down!" He barked again. "Move right now or I will shoot you!"

His mother finally found the panic button but in an attempt to press it, it slipped off her hand and fell before going under the display shelf. She cursed loudly under her breath before she began to cry, trembling as she begged while covering young Domenico.

"Please," she begged. "He's just a child. Don't hurt him. Please, please-"

Her voice broke like glass. The robber's hand shook as angry and panic flooded his senses. He cooked his gun, not caring what the woman was saying. He could feel the heat of fear and the sick, tight knot squeezing in his chest.

Part of it was because of the substances he'd taken and the rest of it was because it was his first day doing this. His hand went to the trigger. And then he warned again.

"Get down on the ground or I'll blow your fucking brains out. And that of your kid too. I will not warn you again, bitch!”