Chapter 2 - The Woman Who Vanished
Waking up in the bed of Chicago’s most feared Mafia boss on my twenty-fifth birthday should have been impossible.
But the first words Dominic Romano spoke made my blood run colder than the winter wind outside the glass walls of his penthouse.
“From now on, you stay.”
He didn’t shout.
He didn’t threaten me.
That made it worse.
I stared at him from beneath the ivory sheet, trying to convince myself that the pounding headache behind my eyes was responsible for everything I was seeing.
The enormous bedroom.
The Chicago skyline.
The chandelier.
My black dress folded neatly over a chair.
And Dominic Romano standing between me and the windows like a man who believed the entire city belonged to him.
“What does that mean?”
My voice cracked.
Dominic slowly turned.
“You heard me.”
“I’m not staying anywhere.”
His expression barely changed.
“You are.”
I threw the sheet aside enough to stand while still keeping it wrapped around me.
“You don’t get to decide that.”
His gray eyes settled on mine.
For the first time, I understood why people lowered their voices whenever they said his name.
It wasn’t because Dominic Romano looked violent.
It was because he didn’t need to.
He carried the stillness of someone accustomed to having his decisions obeyed.
I took one step toward my clothes.
Then the bedroom door shook.
BANG.
I froze.
Another blow struck the wood.
BANG.
Dominic’s entire posture changed.
It was subtle.
His shoulders tightened.
His eyes hardened.
The relaxed man who had walked out of the bathroom disappeared.
“Get behind me.”
I almost laughed from pure panic.
“You think I’m going to—”
“Eliza.”
The fact that he knew my name stopped me.
“Behind me.”
The pounding came again.
This time someone shouted from the hallway.
“Boss!”
Dominic moved toward the door.
“Identify yourself.”
“Carlo.”
Dominic unlocked it only after checking something on a security panel beside the frame.
A broad man in a dark suit rushed inside.
He looked at me.
Then immediately looked away.
“We have a problem.”
Dominic’s voice remained flat.
“What?”
“Someone got into the garage.”
Carlo glanced at me again.
“And they weren’t here for you.”
My stomach dropped.
Dominic’s stare became deadly calm.
“Explain.”
“They photographed her arriving last night.”
I felt the room shift beneath my feet.
“Photographed me?”
Neither man answered immediately.
I moved closer.
“Who photographed me?”
Carlo looked at Dominic.
Apparently even answering me required permission.
That made anger push through my fear.
“Stop doing that!”
Both men looked at me.
“I’m standing right here. If someone is talking about me, then talk to me.”
Dominic studied me for several seconds.
Then he nodded at Carlo.
“Tell her.”
Carlo exhaled.
“A man entered the underground garage sometime after four this morning. Security caught him photographing the vehicle that brought you here.”
“Why would anyone care?”
Carlo didn’t answer.
I looked at Dominic.
His face gave me nothing.
My phone.
I suddenly remembered it.
“Where’s my phone?”
“Charging,” Dominic said.
“Give it to me.”
“No.”
There it was again.
That quiet authority.
I felt something snap inside me.
Maybe it was the hangover.
Maybe it was fear.
Maybe it was twenty-five years of being told what my life had to look like by people who had more money, more power, or more confidence than I did.
I stepped directly toward him.
“I don’t know what happened last night. I don’t know why I’m here. But you do not own me.”
Carlo looked suddenly fascinated by the carpet.
Dominic’s eyes narrowed.
“No,” he said.
I waited.
He continued.
“But right now, keeping you alive matters more than whether you like me.”
The words hit harder than the pounding on the door.
“Keeping me alive?”
Dominic looked at Carlo.
“Clear the floor.”
Carlo immediately left.
I stared at Dominic.
“What happened last night?”
He walked toward a cabinet, poured himself water instead of whiskey, and handed me the glass.
I didn’t take it.
“Answer me.”
“You were at Obsidian.”
“I remember.”
“You were drinking.”
“I remember that too.”
“Do you remember leaving?”
I tried.
Flashing lights.
Maya laughing.
A bartender setting down another pink cocktail.
Someone brushing past me.
Dominic’s gray eyes across the room.
Then—
Nothing.
My stomach twisted.
“No.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“You didn’t leave with me willingly.”
Fear rushed into my chest.
He saw it immediately.
“Not the way you’re thinking.”
“Then explain.”
Dominic walked farther away from me, deliberately creating distance.
“One of my security men noticed someone putting something into your drink.”
My breathing stopped.
“What?”
“You drank part of it before he reached you.”
I grabbed the back of a chair.
Dominic continued.
“You became disoriented. Your friends were gone.”
“Maya wouldn’t leave me.”
“She didn’t.”
The answer came too quickly.
“Where is she?”
“Safe.”
“Where?”
“At home.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I had someone take her there.”
I stared at him.
“You had someone take my friend home?”
“She was almost as drunk as you were.”
Memories surfaced.
Maya dancing.
Maya arguing with her boyfriend.
A man near the bar.
My drink unattended for maybe thirty seconds.
Cold crawled across my skin.
“Who put something in my drink?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Then why bring me here?”
“You couldn’t tell us your address.”
“That isn’t true.”
“You told my driver you lived inside a coffee machine.”
Despite everything, heat rushed into my face.
Dominic almost smiled.
Almost.
“You were not in a condition to be left alone,” he said. “My physician examined you. Nothing happened to you here.”
I tightened the sheet around myself.
“Then why am I not wearing my dress?”
“You were sick on it.”
I closed my eyes.
Wonderful.
Twenty-five years old, broke, drugged at a nightclub, and apparently vomiting in front of Chicago’s most terrifying man.
“Who changed me?”
“My housekeeper. Sofia.”
That loosened something inside my chest.
“Where is she?”
“Downstairs.”
“I want to speak to her.”
“You will.”
“And then I’m leaving.”
Dominic looked toward the windows.
“No.”
I nearly screamed.
“Why?”
He finally faced me.
“Because the person who drugged you wasn’t trying to take advantage of you.”
I stared at him.
“How could you possibly know that?”
“Because he followed the car.”
Silence filled the room.
Dominic stepped closer.
“The man followed you from Obsidian to this building.”
My mouth went dry.
“And someone entered my garage three hours later looking for the woman I brought upstairs.”
I wrapped both arms around myself.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“No.”
Dominic’s voice lowered.
“It doesn’t.”
A new possibility entered my mind.
Maybe this wasn’t about me.
Maybe whoever had followed us thought I mattered because I had been seen with Dominic Romano.
“You think someone believes I’m connected to you?”
“Yes.”
“That’s insane. I met you last night.”
Dominic looked at me for a long moment.
“That is what worries me.”
I dressed in the bathroom.
Sofia appeared with fresh clothes—a simple cream sweater and black pants—and confirmed Dominic’s story without hesitation.
She had changed me.
A doctor had examined me.
Dominic had slept in a chair in his office.
I should have felt relieved.
Instead, one question kept bothering me.
Why had Dominic personally cared whether some random coffee-shop waitress got home safely?
When I returned, my phone was lying on the table.
I grabbed it.
Thirty-seven notifications.
Six missed calls from Maya.
Four from my manager.
And one message from a number I didn’t recognize.
I opened it.
The blood drained from my face.
A photograph filled the screen.
It showed me entering Dominic’s building the previous night.
Underneath were six words.
YOUR MOTHER SHOULD HAVE KEPT RUNNING.
I stopped breathing.
Dominic saw my face.
“What?”
I tried to hide the phone.
He crossed the room.
“Eliza.”
“My mother has nothing to do with this.”
His expression changed.
Not much.
But enough.
“You know something.”
“No.”
“You reacted to her.”
“My mother died when I was nine.”
Dominic went completely still.
I hated the pity I expected.
It never came.
Instead he asked, “What was her name?”
“Why?”
“What was her name?”
I hesitated.
“Isabella.”
Dominic’s hand tightened around the back of the chair.
“Last name?”
“Marino.”
The silence became unbearable.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
Dominic turned away.
For the first time since waking up, he looked shaken.
“Dominic.”
He walked toward the window.
“Your mother wasn’t named Isabella Marino.”
Anger flared.
“Don’t tell me my mother’s name.”
“I’m telling you because I knew her.”
Everything inside me stopped.
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
He looked back at me.
“She used Marino after she disappeared.”
“Disappeared from where?”
Dominic didn’t answer.
I approached him.
“Who was my mother?”
Before he could speak, Carlo rushed back into the bedroom.
This time he didn’t knock.
“Boss.”
Dominic turned.
Carlo held a tablet.
“You need to see this.”
A security image showed a dark sedan parked across the street.
The photograph zoomed in.
A man sat behind the wheel.
Another stood beside the car.
Even through the grainy image, I recognized him.
My knees nearly gave out.
“No.”
Dominic caught my arm.
“You know him?”
I stared at the screen.
“Yes.”
The man outside Dominic Romano’s building was someone I had not seen in sixteen years.
Someone whose funeral I had attended when I was eleven.
“My father.”
Carlo stared at me.
Dominic did not.
He seemed almost as if he had expected the answer.
I pulled away from him.
“My father is dead.”
Dominic’s eyes remained on the image.
“No, Eliza.”
His voice was quieter than ever.
“He isn’t.”
I stared at him.
“Then tell me what’s happening.”
Dominic looked from the security screen to me.
And for the first time, fear appeared in the eyes of Chicago’s most feared man.
“Your parents weren’t running from the Mafia.”
He locked the penthouse door.
May you like
“They were running from your family.”
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