Chapter 5 - The Cracked Armor
Victor and his men scrambled out of the manor like whipped dogs. The conservatory fell into a suffocating silence once more. Marcus signaled the guards to disperse, leaving Dominic and me alone among the shattered calm of the morning.
Dominic stood by the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, his chest heaving with controlled fury. His fists were clenched so tightly that his knuckles were white. The violence he had just displayed was terrifying, a raw demonstration of why men feared his very shadow.
Yet, as I watched his back, I noticed something that made my breath catch.
His right hand was trembling. Not with anger, but with an involuntary, visceral recoil. He stared down at his palm—the palm that had made direct contact with Victor Moretti—and his breathing turned ragged, shallow, and choked.
It was an anxiety attack. A severe sensory panic.
""Dominic?"" I called softly, rising from my seat.
""Stay back,"" he rasped, his voice raw and ragged. ""Don't come near me.""
He braced his hands against the cold glass pane, trying to regain control, but his knees buckled slightly. The ruthless mafia boss was hyperventilating, trapped in an unseen nightmare triggered by physical contact.
I didn't think about his warnings. I didn't think about his rules. Just like in the diner, instinct took over.
I walked quietly across the marble floor until I stood right behind him. Carefully, deliberately, I reached out and gently laid my warm palm over his trembling hand on the glass.
Dominic gasped, his entire body going rigid as iron. ""Lily... I told you...""
""Breathe,"" I said softly, stepping closer until he could hear the steady rhythm of my voice. ""It’s just me. It's Lily. You're in your house. He’s gone.""
Slowly, I turned his hand over and curled my smaller fingers through his cold ones.
He didn't pull away. He didn't strike me. Instead, a shudder ran through his massive frame. His head dropped forward, his forehead resting lightly against the cool pane of the window as he drew in a deep, shuddering lungful of air.
""Why doesn't it hurt when you touch me?"" he whispered into the glass, sounding not like an underworld kingpin, but like a wounded, exhausted man.
""What happened to you, Dominic?"" I asked gently, my thumb stroking the back of his knuckles.
For several minutes, only the sound of rain filled the room. Then, Dominic turned slowly to face me. He looked down at our joined hands, his dark eyes shadowed with ghosts from an unhealed past.
""When I was twelve,"" Dominic spoke quietly, his voice devoid of emotion, ""my father was murdered by his own brother. My uncle locked me in a subterranean vault beneath our family compound in Queens. He kept me in total darkness for four years. No light. No voices. And every time the door opened, it was only for physical torment. Hands were instruments of agony, Lily. Skin against skin meant pain, betrayal, and violence.""
Tears pricked my eyes as the horror of his words sank in. A twelve-year-old child, kept in blackness, taught that every human touch was a prelude to torture.
""When I broke out at sixteen,"" Dominic continued, his gaze searching my face, ""I vowed that no human being would ever touch me without paying in blood. The touch of another person burns like acid on my skin. It makes me feel trapped in that vault all over again.""
""Then why did you let me touch you at the diner?"" I asked softly.
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Dominic lifted his free hand, hesitating for a fraction of a second, before gently resting his fingertips against my cheek. His touch was warm, reverent, and extraordinarily gentle.
""Because when you touched me,"" Dominic whispered, ""it didn't burn. It was the first time in twenty-two years that someone touched me without wanting to take something from me. You just wanted to heal a wound.""
