Chapter 3 - The Midnight Escort
"What proposition?" The words escaped my lips before my common sense could strangle them.
Dominic leaned back against the headrest, studying me through the shadowy gloom of the car. "Get inside, Miss Brooks. The alley behind Strada is not safe after midnight, especially tonight."
"I am not getting into a strange car with an organized crime figure."
"If I wanted to harm you, you wouldn't have made it to the curb," he said, not even raising an eyebrow at my accusation. "Get in. Or Gerald will find you on the pavement when he takes out the morning trash. The Lucenti family has had observers watching this block since six o'clock."
A sudden, sharp metallic click echoed from the mouth of the alleyway behind me.
I froze. Every hair on my arms stood on end. I glanced over my shoulder and saw two silhouettes stepping out from behind a commercial recycling dumpster—thickset men in heavy dark jackets, their hands tucked deep into their pockets in a posture that screamed violence.
Before I could scream, Dominic’s arm reached out, seized my forearm with iron grip, and pulled me across the threshold into the backseat. The door slammed shut with a heavy, vacuum-sealed thud.
"Drive, Marco," Dominic commanded calmly.
The Maybach surged forward with terrifying, silent acceleration. Behind us, through the tinted rear window, I saw one of the shadows sprint toward a battered sedan parked across the street, shouting into a radio.
"Who are they?" I gasped, pressing my back hard against the leather seat, my heart hammering like a trapped bird. "Why were they waiting for me?"
"They weren't waiting for you," Dominic replied, straightening his cuffs as casually as if he had just hailed a cab. "They were waiting for me. But because you threw a scene outside table nine and followed me into my car, they now believe you are either my associate, my informant, or my weakness. In their world, all three designations carry the same outcome."
"You dragged me into this!" I yelled, turning on him. "I am a twenty-three-year-old waitress! I study comparative literature! I don't know who you are, I don't care about your turf wars, and I have a shift at eleven tomorrow morning!"
"You no longer work at Strada," Dominic said.
I stared at him in disbelief. "Excuse me?"
"I bought the building three years ago, but twenty minutes ago, I purchased the business entity and its operating licenses from Gerald for three hundred thousand dollars over market value," he said, tapping a tablet screen mounted between our seats. "You are now my direct employee. Personal executive coordinator. Starting salary is ninety thousand dollars annually, full medical coverage for you and your dependents, effective immediately."
"Are you insane?"
"I am practical," Dominic said, finally turning his head to look directly into my eyes. For the first time, I saw a flicker of raw intensity behind his icy mask. "The Lucenti syndicate is preparing for a hostile restructuring of the North Side gaming parlors. They know my face. They know my routines. But they do not know you. I need someone who can carry messages, audit local operations, and tell me the brutal, unvarnished truth without cowering. You proved you can do that in the rain, and you proved it again tonight."
"And if I say no? If I tell you to let me out at the next corner?"
May you like
Dominic looked toward the side mirror, where the headlights of the pursuing sedan were rapidly closing the distance through the rain-slicked highway.
"If you get out at the next corner," he said, unholstering a matte-black firearm from beneath his shoulder, "you have approximately four minutes before their bumper runs you down. Duck your head, Nadia."
