Chapter 9 - Salt and Blood
She found the first-aid kit in the adjoining marble bathroom.
I sat on a velvet armchair while Clara cut away the shredded fabric of my shirt. Her fingers were surprisingly steady as she swabbed the bullet graze with antiseptic. The sting was sharp, but having her this close—smelling the familiar lavender scent of her soap beneath the smell of rain and copper—was a different kind of pain altogether.
"You haven't changed," she whispered, taping a sterile gauze pad over the wound. "Still getting shot. Still refusing to admit it hurts."
"I missed you, Clara," I said, my voice dropping an octave. "Every single day."
Her hands froze against my bare chest. Her eyes rose to meet mine. There was six years of grief, longing, and betrayal in that gaze, but beneath it all, the embers of what we had once shared were still burning.
"Don't do that," she said, pulling her hands back as if she had been burned. "You can't just slide back into my life, Dominic. You're a mob boss. You command killers. I work at a community library. I make twenty-two dollars an hour. Our worlds don't fit."
"I will make them fit."
"And what about the Harringtons? What about Sloane?"
"Sloane is irrelevant."
"Her father isn't," Clara said sharply. "He's a United States Senator with ties to every dirty judge in Massachusetts. And your uncle... you think I don't remember Salvatore? He was the one who drove the car when your father came to threaten me."
A cold shock went through my spine.
"What did you say?"
Clara looked at me, confused. "Salvatore. He was there. He sat in the front seat of your father's car with an envelope full of cash and a silenced revolver on his lap. He smiled at me, Dominic. He told me that if I went to you, he’d personally ensure you were killed in a gang war and blamed on the Irish."
The pieces fell into place with sickening clarity.
My father hadn't orchestrated Clara's disappearance alone. Salvatore had engineered the entire thing. He knew that if I married Clara, an outsider with no criminal connections, the Moretti family would slowly distance itself from the dirty syndicates. Salvatore needed the Harrington alliance to keep the drug pipelines flowing through the harbor.
My uncle hadn't just protected the family business. He had stolen my life.
Before I could speak, heavy footsteps echoed down the corridor outside the suite. Marcus appeared in the doorway, his face pale and grim.
"Dom. We have a problem."
"What is it?" I asked, rising to my feet, ignoring the throbbing pain in my shoulder.
"Salvatore just called an emergency conclave at the North End social club," Marcus said, keeping his voice low so as not to wake the boys. "He brought in the heads of the Genovese and Lucchese families from New York. He’s telling them you've gone rogue. He’s invoking the blood succession clause."
"He can't," I snapped. "The bloodline passes to me."
"He's claiming you're sterile, Dominic," Marcus said, his eyes darting toward the bed where the four boys lay sleeping. "He told the Commission that you never produced an heir, that you refused the Harrington alliance out of madness, and that under the old laws, the seat passes to him."
A dark, terrifying smile slowly spread across my face.
"Sterile?" I murmured.
I looked back at the bed. Four boys. Four miniature versions of myself, sleeping peacefully beneath the Moretti crest.
"Call my convoy," I told Marcus. "Tell the New York bosses to stay seated. I am coming to the North End."
"Dominic, no!" Clara stepped forward, grabbing my forearm. "It’s a trap! If you walk into that club, they’ll execute you!"
I turned to her, reaching up to cup her cheek with my hand. For the first time in six years, she didn't pull away.
May you like
"They think I’m alone, Clara," I said softly, leaning down to press a gentle kiss to her forehead. "They don't know that tonight, the Moretti dynasty just became unbreakable."
***
