THE SCAR THAT STOPPED THE CITY’S MOST FEARED MAFIA BOSS: THE SHOCKING TRUTH ABOUT NORAH'S PAST!

The silence that followed was heavier than the concrete walls around them.

Nora—Eleanor—sat frozen against the brick. The name felt strange, foreign, like a coat that had belonged to someone else, tailored for a life she had never lived. Yet, as she repeated it silently in her mind, a strange, phantom ache bloomed in her chest, as if a lock that had rusted shut for decades had finally received the right key.

“You’re insane,” she whispered, though the conviction had drained entirely out of her voice.

“Am I?” Dominic took two slow steps toward her, kneeling down once more so they were at eye level. Up close, she could see the striking similarity in the shape of his jaw, the dark slash of his eyebrows, and the stubborn curve of his mouth—features she had spent the last twelve hours staring at with pure terror, now somehow mirroring her own face in the reflection of a dark window. “Look at your left hand, Eleanor. Do you still have the habit of tapping your index finger twice before you speak when you’re nervous?”

Nora’s hand instinctively twitched. Her index finger tapped twice against her knee before she caught herself and jammed her hand beneath her thigh.

Her breath hitched.

Dominic saw it, and a grim, painful smile touched his lips.

“I taught you that when you were four years old,” he said quietly, his voice dropping an octave. “You used to do it every time you tried to convince me you didn't eat the last piece of cherry pie in the pantry.”

“I... I don't remember,” she choked out, a sob finally breaking through her defenses. She pressed her palms against her face, her shoulders shaking. “I don't remember anything before the orphanage. I spent twenty years wondering who left me on those steps, wondering why nobody came looking for me, wondering if I was just some piece of trash someone threw away! And now you walk in here like it’s nothing and tell me you’re my brother?”

Dominic didn't hesitate. He closed the remaining distance between them, ignoring her weak attempt to push him away, and pulled her into his arms.

The embrace was stiff at first, Nora’s body rigid with distrust and defensive adrenaline. But as she felt the solid, steady warmth of him—felt the way his broad shoulders trembled with a grief he had carried alone for half a lifetime—the walls she had built around her heart for two decades cracked.

She buried her face against his damp coat, weeping with all the exhaustion, terror, and sorrow she had bottled up inside herself since the moment Mason and Cal had dragged her off the rain-slicked street outside her apartment.

“I looked for you,” Dominic murmured against her hair, his voice rough, thick with suppressed emotion. “For fourteen years, every birthday, every holiday, every night down at the docks... I searched every registry, every hospital, every morgue from Boston to Baltimore. Rourke told me you were dead. He showed me the coat. He showed me the blood.”

Nora pulled back slightly, wiping her face with the back of her sleeve, her eyes flashing with sudden realization. “Rourke? What does Rourke have to do with this?”

Dominic’s expression hardened instantly, the warmth vanishing to reveal the cold, calculating mafia boss who ruled half the eastern seaboard. The transformation was terrifying to witness.

“Rourke was my father’s logistics manager,” Dominic said, standing up and extending a hand to help her. This time, she didn't refuse it. His grip was iron-strong, pulling her effortlessly to her feet, though he kept a steadying hand on her arm until she regained her balance. “When our parents died in that ‘accident’—which wasn't an accident at all—Rourke took control of the shipping records. He wanted the empire for himself. But he knew that as long as my little sister was alive, there was a legitimate heir who could strip him of everything.”

“The ledger,” Nora realized, a cold shiver running down her spine. “That’s what was in the ledger, isn't it? Proof of what he did.”

“That’s why he had you hunted,” Dominic said grimly, his jaw clenching. “He didn't want the ledger back because of money. He wanted it back because it has our father’s original signatures detailing the transfer of the Boston docks—and the names of everyone who helped Rourke burn our family home to the ground.”

Nora stared at him, the pieces of a puzzle she had been assembling blindly for months finally snapping into place. “I didn't steal it from his office yesterday, Dominic. I stole it three years ago when I was working as his personal archivist. I didn't even know what it meant until I started looking into the company's history last month and saw my own family's name crossed out.”

Dominic let out a dark, dangerous laugh. “You’ve been sitting on a nuclear bomb for three years, and you thought you were just hiding a spicy document.”

“I was trying to stay alive!” she snapped back, though there was no real heat in it.

“And you did,” Dominic said, his eyes softening as he looked down at her. He reached out and gently brushed a damp strand of dark hair away from her forehead. “You survived. Just like you always did.”

Suddenly, the heavy steel door at the end of the basement corridor rattled violently.