Chapter 3 - The Betrayal Beneath the Numbers
The next morning, Dominic doubled the security around Harper.
She hated it.
Two guards followed her through the apartment. Enzo checked every delivery. Her phone was replaced with an encrypted device. Even Lily was told not to visit until the situation was “resolved.”
Harper paced through the living room like a trapped animal.
“I cannot keep living like this,” she told Dominic.
He stood near the window, speaking into his phone in Italian. When he ended the call, his expression was unreadable.
“You will not have to,” he said. “Not forever.”
“That is not comforting.”
“It is honest.”
Harper crossed her arms. “You keep saying you want to protect me, but you never tell me the truth.”
Dominic turned toward her.
“The truth is that Victor wants leverage over me. You are leverage.”
“I am not yours.”
His eyes held hers.
“No,” he said quietly. “You are not.”
The words should have reassured her.
Instead, they left her strangely disappointed.
Over the next week, Harper worked through the records Dominic had provided. She found companies linked to Victor, Northbridge Financial, and several Chicago city contracts. She also discovered something worse.
The money trail connected to a care facility in Ohio.
The same facility where Harper’s mother lived.
Her hands shook as she opened the documents.
A company called Alder Health Holdings had been quietly buying nursing homes across the Midwest. On paper, it looked legitimate. In reality, Harper found evidence that the company was being used to hide funds and move people without records.
Her mother’s facility was listed among the properties.
“Dominic,” Harper said, her voice breaking. “You need to see this.”
He read the documents in silence.
When he reached the facility’s name, his face changed.
“Your mother is not safe there anymore,” he said.
Harper felt the room tilt.
“What do you mean?”
“Victor may have known about her before he targeted you.”
“No.” Harper backed away. “No, he cannot use my mother.”
“He can if he thinks it will make you cooperate.”
Harper grabbed her coat.
“I am going to Ohio.”
Dominic caught her wrist.
The contact sent heat through her skin, but his grip was careful.
“You cannot go alone.”
“She is my mother.”
“And Victor knows that.”
“I do not care.”
“I do.”
His voice rose for the first time.
The room fell still.
Dominic released her wrist immediately, regret flashing across his face.
“I am sorry,” he said. “But I will not let you walk into a trap.”
Harper stared at him, tears burning in her eyes.
“You do not get to tell me what I can do.”
“No,” he said. “But I can come with you.”
They left that afternoon in a convoy of black SUVs.
During the drive, Harper sat beside Dominic in silence. Chicago’s skyline faded behind them, replaced by wet highways and gray fields. After an hour, Dominic removed his jacket and draped it over her shoulders.
“I am not cold,” Harper said.
“You are shaking.”
“I am terrified.”
His gaze softened.
“So am I.”
Harper looked at him in disbelief. “Dominic Russo is afraid?”
“Not for myself.”
The words settled heavily between them.
At the care facility, they found Harper’s mother safe—but confused. A nurse explained that two men had arrived the previous evening claiming they were family members. They had been turned away only because Harper’s mother’s doctor had updated the visitor restrictions.
Dominic’s team searched the building.
Enzo found a tiny listening device beneath a chair in the lobby.
Victor had been watching.
Back in Chicago, Harper refused to return to the safe house.
Instead, she insisted on staying in Dominic’s home.
It was a massive stone mansion on the edge of the city, surrounded by iron gates and armed guards. But it felt less like a fortress than the penthouse. Maybe because Dominic was there.
That night, Harper found him in his office, standing before a wall of old photographs.
One showed a teenage Dominic beside a beautiful woman with dark hair.
“My mother,” he said when he noticed her. “She died when I was seventeen.”
“I am sorry.”
“She wanted me to leave this life. I promised her I would.”
“But you did not.”
“No.”
Harper moved closer.
“Why?”
Dominic looked down at the photograph.
“Because my father was murdered, and the men who did it came after my sister next. I learned very quickly that leaving was not always an option.”
For the first time, Harper understood something important.
Dominic had not been born a monster.
He had become dangerous because danger had found him first.
The next morning, Harper received an email from Braden.
It contained one sentence.
I can prove Victor is behind everything, but I need protection.
Dominic wanted to ignore it.
Harper did not.
“Braden is a coward,” she said. “But he is scared. That means he knows something.”
“It could be a trap.”
“Everything is a trap in your world.”
“In yours too, apparently.”
They agreed to meet Braden inside an abandoned office building near the river.
Harper wore a wire.
Dominic hated the plan. She could see it in every tense line of his body.
“If anything feels wrong,” he told her, “you leave immediately.”
“I know.”
“And Harper?”
She turned back.
His hand lifted as if he wanted to touch her face, then stopped.
“Do not make me regret trusting you.”
Her heart tightened.
Inside the building, Braden waited beside broken windows and dusty desks.
“I did not cut your brakes,” he said immediately.
“You were there.”
“I was there because Victor forced me to be there.”
Harper stared at him.
Braden confessed that Victor had threatened to expose his financial crimes unless he cooperated. He had helped move money and manipulate reports. But when Harper began reviewing the wrong files, Victor decided she was a risk.
“Dominic Russo is not your enemy,” Braden said. “Victor wants to destroy him, and he is using you to do it.”
A loud crash echoed through the building.
Enzo’s voice came through Harper’s earpiece.
“Miss Hayes, get out now.”
May you like
The lights died.
Then Braden screamed.
