Chapter 5 - Shadows From the Past
Over the next three weeks, the rhythm of Hannah’s life shifted dramatically. The crushing exhaustion that had defined her existence for years was replaced by an electric, intoxicating anticipation.
Every Thursday night at the Grand Marlowe, Hannah sat in Box Six. She no longer wore the usher’s uniform. She wore elegant, understated evening dresses that Dominic sent to her apartment with discreet, handwritten cards. They listened to Brahms, Mozart, and Chopin, but the music had become a backdrop to the quiet conversations that filled the box.
Dominic laughed. It was a rare, low sound, but whenever Hannah provoked it with her sharp wit, Luca would look over from the curtain with an expression of stunned disbelief.
“You’re changing him,” Luca told Hannah one night in the theater corridor while Dominic was on a private call. The hulking bodyguard looked down at her with genuine gratitude. “In ten years of working for Mr. Moretti, I’ve never seen him sleep more than four hours a night. Now, he checks the clock waiting for Thursday.”
“He’s just lonely, Luca,” Hannah murmured.
“Loneliness makes men dangerous, Miss Cole,” Luca warned softly. “Love makes them vulnerable. And in our world, vulnerability attracts wolves.”
The wolves were already circling.
Victor Rossi, the disgraced rival whose European operations Dominic had crushed weeks earlier, had returned to the city. Rossi was a desperate man facing bankruptcy and federal prison, and desperate men did not play by the civilized rules of corporate finance.
On a rainy Tuesday, Hannah left her apartment to pick up groceries. As she walked down the cracked sidewalk of her working-class neighborhood, a black SUV with tinted windows crept alongside her, matching her walking pace.
Her pulse spiked. She quickened her steps, reaching for her phone.
Before she could dial, the passenger window rolled down. A gaunt, hollow-cheeked man with cold reptilian eyes stared out at her.
“Miss Cole,” the man purred, his voice slick and venomous. “You’ve come up in the world, haven’t you? An usher living like a queen on Moretti’s dime.”
“Who are you?” Hannah demanded, backing toward the front steps of a nearby brownstone.
“Tell Dominic that Victor Rossi sends his regards,” the man smiled, tapping the dashboard. “Tell him that empty chairs can’t protect what’s inside them.”
The SUV accelerated with a roar of its engine, splashing dirty gutter water across her shoes as it disappeared around the corner.
Trembling, Hannah dialed Dominic’s private number. He answered on the first ring.
“Hannah? What’s wrong?” He caught the terror in her ragged breathing instantly.
“A man... in a black SUV,” she stammered, clutching the railing of the steps. “He said his name was Victor Rossi. He told me to tell you that empty chairs can't protect what’s inside them.”
The silence on the other end of the line was deafening. When Dominic spoke again, his voice had lost every trace of warmth, replaced by a chilling, absolute fury that made the hair on Hannah's arms stand up.
“Where are you right now?”
“Two blocks from my apartment.”
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“Stay where there are people. Do not go inside. Luca is ninety seconds away.”
Before Hannah could even put her phone in her pocket, the screech of tires echoed down the avenue. Luca’s armored sedan pulled up to the curb, the door flying open. Within seconds, Hannah was whisked away from the streets she had known her entire life, propelled directly into the gilded, heavily guarded sanctuary of Dominic Moretti’s fortress.
