Chapter 2 - The Unseen Guard
For the next week, the air around me felt electric, heavy with a silent, terrifying gravity.
I returned to my quiet life at the library, sorting through historical archives and processing film, desperately trying to convince myself that the afternoon in the abandoned gallery was just a nightmare. But every time I walked home, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I would catch glimpses of a black SUV idling at the end of my street, or the heavily tattooed man named Jax buying coffee at the café across from my apartment building.
Dominic Wolfe hadn't just let me go. He had built an invisible cage of protection around me.
On a rainy Thursday evening, the illusion of safety finally shattered.
I was walking to my apartment, my umbrella lowered against the wind, when a dark sedan suddenly swerved into the narrow alleyway in front of me, cutting off my path. Two men in heavy leather jackets stepped out. They didn't look like Dominic’s men; they looked chaotic, desperate, and armed.
"You're the photographer," the taller one sneered, pulling a switchblade from his pocket. "Marcus Cross wants to know exactly what you saw in that gallery before Wolfe’s men cleaned it up."
My umbrella clattered to the wet pavement. I took a step back, my heart hammering violently against my ribs. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't lie to us, sweetheart," the second man snarled, lunging forward to grab my coat.
He never made it.
Out of the shadows, a massive figure moved with terrifying, instantaneous speed. Dominic Wolfe stepped in front of me like an impenetrable wall of black wool and lethal intent. He didn't shout. He didn't hesitate. He grabbed the man’s extended arm, twisted it with a sickening crack, and drove his knee into the attacker's ribs.
The man crumpled to the ground, screaming in agony.
The taller man froze, his switchblade shaking in his hand as he recognized the apex predator of Boston's underworld.
"Tell Cross," Dominic said, his voice a low, vibrating purr that echoed off the brick walls, "that if he sends his stray dogs to sniff around my territory again, I won't send them back alive. Run."
The man dropped the knife, dragging his groaning partner up by the collar, and they scrambled into their sedan, peeling out of the alley in a frantic panic.
The silence that followed was absolute, save for the sound of the rain.
I stood trembling against the brick wall, my breath coming in ragged gasps. Dominic slowly turned to face me. The brutal violence that had just consumed him vanished entirely, replaced by a dark, intense concern. He took off his heavy overcoat and draped it over my shivering shoulders. It smelled of cedar, expensive scotch, and gunpowder.
"They tracked your library ID badge," Dominic said quietly, his amber-flecked eyes scanning my face for any sign of injury. "You dropped a receipt in the gallery. I am sorry, Alora. I thought my men had sanitized the scene completely."
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"They're going to kill me," I whispered, tears finally spilling over my eyelashes.
"No, they aren't," Dominic vowed, his jaw clenching. He reached out, his thumb gently wiping a raindrop from my cheek. "Because you are no longer going home. You are coming with me."
