Chapter 6 - The Shadows of the Past
As the weeks turned into November, the psychological warfare shifted from the corporate offices of Michigan Avenue to the legal courtrooms of Cook County. Dominic’s legal team had filed an expedited petition for absolute divorce on the grounds of extreme physical cruelty, backing the claim with three years of hidden medical logs, intercepted text messages, and the country club patio surveillance tape.
Grant Ashford had vanished from public life. His architectural firm had filed for bankruptcy, his country club membership had been summarily revoked by the board of directors, and his mansion in Lake Forest was under a continuous federal asset freeze. He was a ghost in the city he had once tried to design.
But a cornered rat is always the most dangerous.
"You're tracking his burner phones?" Dominic asked, standing in the private room beneath his restaurant downtown. The table was covered in transit logs, cellular tower pings, and surveillance photographs of Grant’s remaining associates.
"He’s desperate, Boss," Marcus Reed said, pointing to a red dot highlighted on a map of the northern suburbs. "He tried to contact a low-level enforcement crew in Cicero yesterday afternoon. He’s offering fifty thousand dollars in cash—money he hid in a safe deposit box before the federal freeze—for someone to find out where the Lincoln Park townhouse is registered."
Dominic’s gray eyes turned into tiny points of steel. He didn't look angry; he looked entirely focused, like a general preparing for the final phase of an inevitable campaign. "He doesn't want to win, Marcus. He knows he’s lost his money and his name. He wants to take her down with him."
"Should we handle him?" Marcus asked, his hand resting naturally on the lapel of his overcoat.
"No," Dominic said smoothly. "If he disappears into a river right now, the state boards will launch a homicide inquiry that will drag Anna into a courtroom for another year. I want him caught in the act. I want him to step into the trap himself."
He turned and walked out of the room, taking the private elevator up to the street level where his personal sedan was waiting. Twenty minutes later, he was walking into the Lincoln Park townhouse.
Anna was standing in the kitchen, a recipe book open on the counter, her hair pinned up with a simple wooden clip. The swelling on her jaw had completely faded, leaving her skin clear and radiant in the afternoon sun. The haunted, frantic look in her eyes had been replaced by a quiet, rising peace.
"You're cooking," Dominic said, a faint, rare smile touching his sharp lips as he stepped into the space.
"I'm trying to," Anna laughed softly, her cheeks turning a pretty pink. "Marcus told me your favorite meal was the braised short ribs from the old neighborhood. I wanted to see if I could replicate it without a professional kitchen."
May you like
Dominic walked over to the counter, stopping right beside her. He didn't reach out to touch her waist; he simply stood close enough for her to feel his immense warmth, his eyes looking down into hers with a devotion that didn't need a single word to clarify itself.
"You don't need to cook for me to stay, Anna," he murmured, his deep voice vibrating through the quiet room. "I'm not Grant. I don't need an asset to show off at dinners. I just need to know you're breathing the same air I am."
