Chapter 1 - Twelve Hours in the Dark
“Do you want to live?” Dominic asked.
Amelia stared at him.
The ballroom had become a storm of screams, overturned tables, gunfire, and shattered crystal. Somewhere behind the marble pillar, a woman was praying. Somewhere else, a man was shouting for his daughter.
Amelia’s breath came in terrified little bursts.
“Yes.”
“Then don’t let go of me.”
Dominic pulled her upright.
She clutched the front of his jacket as another round struck the pillar inches from his shoulder.
“Move.”
They ran.
Dominic kept himself between Amelia and the gunmen as he pushed through the service corridor. Two members of his security detail appeared near the kitchen doors.
“Garage is compromised,” one shouted. “Torres men on both exits.”
Dominic changed direction without slowing.
“Basement.”
“Boss—”
“Now.”
They descended two flights through a stairwell filled with smoke.
Amelia nearly fell on the second landing. Dominic caught her around the waist.
“I can’t—”
“Yes, you can.”
“I don’t even know who you are.”
For the first time that night, he almost smiled.
“That makes you the only person in this building.”
They reached the hotel’s underground service level.
Dominic knew the property better than the hotel manager. Three months earlier, Castellano Global had quietly purchased the debt attached to the building. He knew about the old Prohibition-era storage rooms beneath the western foundation.
One of those rooms had been converted into an emergency bunker.
Dominic opened the steel door, pushed Amelia inside, and turned toward his men.
“Secure the corridor.”
“What about you?”
“I’m staying.”
His security chief looked at Amelia, then back at him.
That tiny hesitation irritated Dominic.
“Problem?”
“No, sir.”
The door sealed.
Darkness swallowed them.
Emergency lights should have activated.
They didn’t.
Amelia gasped.
Dominic heard her backing away.
“Stay still.”
“Where are you?”
“Three feet in front of you.”
“I can’t see anything.”
“Neither can they.”
Outside, gunfire echoed through concrete.
Dominic removed his phone.
No service.
The bunker’s internal communications panel was dead.
Sabotaged.
Which meant the attack had required inside knowledge.
Someone knew about his security routes.
Someone knew about the bunker.
Dominic reached inside his jacket.
His pistol remained in its holster.
Amelia heard the movement.
“Are you carrying a gun?”
“Yes.”
Her breath stopped.
Dominic understood instantly.
“You’re safer with me than without me.”
“That sounds exactly like something a dangerous man would say.”
This time, he did smile.
In complete darkness.
“Probably.”
For several minutes, neither spoke.
Then Amelia whispered, “My name is Amelia.”
“I know.”
Silence.
“How?”
“The florist badge you’re still wearing.”
“Oh.”
Another explosion shook dust from the ceiling.
Amelia flinched.
Dominic heard fabric rustle.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
“Why would I lie?”
“People usually do.”
She gave a nervous laugh that sounded almost absurd in the darkness.
“My cheek is cut. That’s it.”
“Come here.”
“No.”
“Amelia.”
“I don’t know you.”
“You told me your name thirty seconds ago.”
“That isn’t the same as knowing you.”
Dominic had negotiated with cartel leaders, senators, billionaires, and men who would kill their own brothers for territory.
Nobody had ever argued with him while trapped in a dark bunker.
He found it strangely irritating.
And strangely human.
“My name is Dominic.”
“That’s not helpful.”
“Dominic Castellano.”
Silence again.
A different silence.
“Oh.”
There it was.
Recognition.
Dominic leaned against the wall.
“What have you heard?”
“Nothing.”
“Bad liar.”
“I arrange flowers for charity galas. People talk.”
“What do they say?”
“That you’re rich.”
“Accurate.”
“That people are afraid of you.”
“Also accurate.”
“That your company owns half the docks in New York.”
“Exaggeration.”
“How much?”
“Thirty-seven percent.”
Amelia laughed despite herself.
The sound hit Dominic harder than it should have.
Outside, men were trying to kill him.
Inside, a florist had just laughed at him.
He preferred the second problem.
They remained underground for twelve hours.
The attack ended after forty-three minutes, but Dominic refused to open the bunker until his people confirmed three separate security codes.
During those twelve hours, the darkness changed something.
People revealed themselves differently when they couldn’t see each other.
Amelia told him she owned a flower shop in Brooklyn with her younger sister.
She told him their mother had died when Amelia was nineteen.
She told him she hated orchids because wealthy people ordered them when they wanted to apologize without saying what they had done.
Dominic said nothing to that.
She asked him whether he had children.
“No.”
“Do you want them?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Children are vulnerabilities.”
“That’s a terrible reason.”
“It’s an accurate one.”
“Those aren’t the same thing.”
No one spoke to Dominic that way.
Nobody except Amelia.
At three in the morning, the temperature dropped inside the bunker.
Amelia began shivering.
Dominic removed his jacket.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re shaking.”
“So are you.”
“I’m angry.”
“You shake when you’re angry?”
“No.”
“Then you’re cold.”
He placed the jacket around her shoulders.
Hours later, he woke with Amelia asleep against him.
Her cheek rested against his chest.
One hand had unconsciously curled around his shirt.
Dominic stared into darkness.
He should have moved.
He didn’t.
When the bunker finally opened, morning light flooded the room.
Amelia blinked.
Dominic saw her properly for the first time.
Brown hair tangled around her shoulders.
A dried cut on her cheek.
Soft green eyes.
His jacket wrapped around her small body.
She looked ordinary.
That was what frightened him.
There was nothing strategic about her.
Nothing useful.
Nothing he could rationalize.
And he wanted her.
That was the beginning.
Not of a romance Dominic understood.
Of a weakness he spent the next several months pretending he could control.
He began visiting Amelia’s shop after closing.
The first time, he claimed he needed flowers for a dinner.
“You have assistants for that,” she said.
“I fired them.”
“All of them?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“They annoyed me.”
She folded her arms.
“You’re lying.”
Dominic looked at the rows of roses behind her.
“What would you recommend for a dinner?”
“Who are you trying to impress?”
“You.”
She stared at him.
Then laughed.
He bought every flower in the shop.
She refused the money.
He returned the following night.
And the next.
Dominic had known beautiful women.
He had known sophisticated women who understood power, money, and discretion.
Amelia impressed him by being completely unimpressed.
She criticized his coffee.
She refused his driver.
She made him carry buckets.
Once, when he sent armed security to stand outside her store, she walked out and handed both men bouquets.
“For your wives.”
Neither man had a wife.
Dominic never allowed them to forget it.
Weeks became months.
He started sleeping at her apartment.
Not often.
Never predictably.
He told himself unpredictability made her safer.
Then one night Amelia woke and found Dominic sitting at the edge of the bed, holding a pistol.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Dominic.”
“Go back to sleep.”
She touched his shoulder.
He almost recoiled.
“Someone threatened me.”
Her voice changed.
“Because of me?”
“No.”
Again, a lie.
Three days earlier, intercepted communications from the Torres faction had contained Amelia’s name.
Her address.
Her sister’s name.
A photograph of her leaving the flower shop.
Dominic had spent his entire life preparing for enemies to attack his businesses.
He had never prepared for the sight of Amelia’s photograph sitting on another man’s desk.
That was when he made the decision.
Cruelty would save her.
At least, that was what he told himself.
He took Amelia to a secure hotel suite beneath one of his properties.
She thought they were leaving the city together.
Instead, Dominic placed an envelope on the table.
Inside was two hundred thousand dollars.
“What is this?”
“You’re leaving New York.”
She stared at him.
“What?”
“Tonight.”
“Why?”
“This is finished.”
The words nearly tore his throat open.
Amelia went still.
“What is finished?”
“Whatever you thought this was.”
“Dominic.”
“You were temporary.”
Her face changed.
It happened slowly.
Confusion first.
Then disbelief.
Then pain.
He forced himself to continue.
“You entertained me during a difficult few months. Don’t turn it into something sentimental.”
Amelia’s eyes filled.
Dominic had ordered men killed without losing sleep.
Watching those tears nearly broke him.
She pushed the envelope back.
“Keep your money.”
“You’ll need it.”
“I don’t want anything from you.”
“You’re taking it.”
“No.”
“Amelia—”
“Was any of it real?”
He could have told her.
He could have said everything.
That Torres had her photograph.
That men were already being moved to protect her sister.
That he hadn’t slept properly in weeks because every time Amelia left his sight, he imagined receiving a photograph of her body.
Instead, he said the sentence he knew would make her leave.
“No.”
Amelia slapped him.
Dominic didn’t move.
Her hand trembled.
“I hate you.”
He looked at the woman he loved and forced his face to remain empty.
“Good.”
She walked out.
Dominic remained in the bunker for twenty minutes after the door closed.
Then he picked up the envelope she had abandoned.
He followed her upstairs.
She was gone.
Two hours later, Dominic discovered she had taken exactly one thing.
His jacket.
The same one he had wrapped around her in the darkness eight months earlier.
He told himself that meant nothing.
Every Monday afterward, a fresh white orchid appeared on his desk.
Not because Dominic liked orchids.
Because Amelia hated them.
Because every time he looked at one, he remembered her saying wealthy men used flowers when they were too cowardly to apologize.
Eight months passed.
Dominic never contacted her.
Not once.
He quietly watched from a distance instead.
Or believed he did.
That was his second mistake.
His first had been letting Amelia become important.
His second was trusting someone else to keep her safe.
And on a freezing morning eight months after she disappeared, Dominic’s phone rang.
His security chief, Matteo Rinaldi, sounded different.
“Boss, we have a situation.”
Dominic looked away from the orchid.
“What kind?”
“Mercantile Reserve Bank. Midtown.”
Dominic’s expression hardened.
The private bank held accounts belonging to senators, foreign investors, celebrities, and several men who officially did not exist.
More importantly, beneath the public vault was another room.
Dominic’s room.
Inside it sat a handwritten ledger documenting twenty years of payments, partnerships, bribes, shell companies, and names powerful enough to collapse governments.
If federal agents obtained it, Dominic’s legitimate empire would be destroyed before sunset.
“How bad?”
“Nine hostages confirmed.”
“Who took the bank?”
Matteo hesitated.
“Gabriel Torres.”
Dominic went completely still.
The man responsible for the hotel attack.
The man Dominic believed had fled the country six months earlier.
“What does he want?”
“You.”
Dominic turned from the window.
Then Matteo said the words that changed everything.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“We received security footage before Torres cut the cameras.”
Dominic’s phone vibrated.
A photograph appeared.
A bank lobby.
Broken glass.
Terrified civilians lying on the marble floor.
And beneath a shattered teller counter sat a pregnant woman wearing a pale blue coat.
Dominic stared.
The world disappeared.
He knew that face.
He knew those hands.
He knew the tiny scar on her cheek.
Amelia.
Eight months gone.
Eight months pregnant.
Dominic’s voice became almost inaudible.
“Get the car.”
“Boss—”
May you like
“Now.”
For the first time in twelve years, Dominic Castellano ran.
