Chapter 8 - The Purge
We didn't go back to the hospital in Chicago; Dominic had an entire medical trauma team flown directly to his secluded compound in northern Wisconsin.
For forty-eight hours, I was kept under observation in a high-tech medical suite overlooking private snow-dusted pines. The doctors ran ultrasounds, checked fetal heartbeats, and monitored my blood pressure around the clock.
When the ultrasound screen illuminated the darkened room, showing the tiny, resilient heartbeat pulsing strong and steady at ten weeks, Dominic broke down. He sat beside the bed, his head bowed, kissing my knuckles with tears tracking through the stubble on his jaw.
"They're fine, Mr. Bellano," the head obstetrician assured softly. "Your wife and your baby are remarkably strong."
*Your wife.* The word hung in the air, no longer a legal convenience, but an undisputed reality forged in fire and blood.
While I rested, Dominic dismantled the remnants of the conspiracy with cold, terrifying efficiency. From my bedside, I watched him give quiet, ruthless orders over encrypted lines. Victor Raines’s organization was wiped out overnight; their docks seized, their assets frozen, and their lieutenants forced to bend the knee or disappear into the depths of Lake Michigan.
By Tuesday afternoon, only one loose thread remained.
The heavy mahogany doors of the suite opened, and two guards escorted Helena Bellano into the room.
The matriarch looked completely broken. Her expensive fur coat hung limply from her shoulders, her hair was disheveled, and the arrogant sneer she had worn for decades was replaced by a hollow, trembling fear.
"Dominic," she whispered, her voice cracking as she looked at her son standing by the window. "You can't do this. I am your mother. I built this empire with your father!"
Dominic turned slowly, his eyes colder than the winter outside. "You signed a contract with Victor Raines to murder my unborn child. You gave him the coordinates to Penelope's car."
"I was trying to save our name!" she cried, tears spilling over her wrinkled cheeks. "A secretary, Dominic? A girl with no pedigree, no backing? She would ruin everything we built!"
"She is worth ten of you," Dominic said with devastating finality. He tossed a set of flight manifests onto the table. "You leave for a villa in southern Sicily within the hour. You will never set foot on American soil again. Your bank accounts are stripped to a living stipend, and twenty of my men will watch your front door until the day you die."
"You're exiling me?" she gasped. "You're banishing your own mother for her?"
Dominic stepped forward, his presence suffocating the room. "Be grateful you share my blood, Helena. If you were anyone else, you would be sharing a grave with Victor Raines right now. Take her away."
As the guards dragged her out, Helena didn't look at Dominic. She looked at me—the quiet secretary she had called a mouse—now holding the absolute devotion of the most powerful man in Chicago.
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I looked back at her without hatred, only a quiet, unyielding pity. The empire was changing, and there was no room left for monsters who ate their own children.
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