Chapter 4 - The House in Red Hook
The Verano estate in Red Hook wasn't the old mansion in Long Island where Dominic’s father had died. It was a former brick warehouse right on the waterfront, converted into a high-security residential fortress that looked out over the dark, choppy waters of the shipping channels.
The walls were three feet of solid industrial brick, reinforced with steel plating on the interior. Outside, the cranes of the Atlantic Basin rose like skeletal giants against the winter sky, their yellow lights blinking through the sleet.
The boys had fallen asleep during the twenty-minute drive from Midtown, their heads stacked against one another like sacks of flour in the back of Dominic’s Escalade. Dominic had driven himself, his hands locked at ten and two on the steering wheel, his eyes never leaving the rearview mirror where my reflection sat in the dark.
He hadn't spoken a word since the loading dock.
Now, the car pulled through a massive steel rolling gate that shut behind us with the sound of a prison vault closing.
"Nico," Dominic said as he killed the engine. "Bring the bags. Nobody touches the children but me and Elena."
"Boss," Nico nodded, opening the rear door.
I didn't wait for him. I scrambled out of the leather seat, my knees shaking as the cold salt air hit my face. The smell of the river—old wood, brine, and diesel—was exactly the same as the night I had boarded the ferry with a fake passport and a stomach that had just begun to show.
Dominic moved past me without a word, his massive arms reaching into the back seat. He lifted Raphael first, tucking the three-year-old against his shoulder as if the boy weighed nothing at all. Raphael didn't even wake up; he simply buried his face into the black cashmere of Dominic’s coat, his small hand instinctively curling around Dominic’s silver collar pin.
I saw Dominic’s jaw twitch as the boy’s fingers touched his skin. For a second, the dangerous don of New York looked like he had been hit by a lead pipe.
"Give me Luca," I said, my voice sharp with a mother’s territorial panic.
"I’ve got him," Dominic said, his other arm reaching back in to scoop up both Luca and Marco at once. He carried all three of them against his chest, their small legs dangling against his gray trousers, his coat wrapped around them like a tarp.
He walked up the iron steps of the warehouse entrance, his boots clicking rhythmically against the metal.
The interior was vast, warm, and smelled of beeswax and old wood. The floor was polished concrete, covered in massive Persian rugs that cost more than my entire corporate accounting firm’s annual revenue. A massive brick fireplace dominated the western wall, the logs inside already roaring with a high, golden flame.
Dominic carried the boys down a long hallway lined with bookshelves to a large, sun-drenched room that had been set up as a guest suite. The beds were large, covered in white down comforters that looked like snow drifts.
He laid them down one by one, his movements unexpectedly precise for a man whose hands had spent the last three years signing execution orders and union contracts. He untied their sneakers, pulled off their small winter coats, and lined their shoes up by the door.
From tallest to shortest.
Just like Marco had done with the breadsticks.
I stood in the doorway, my hands pressed against the frame, watching him. "You have no right to keep us here, Dominic. I’m a federal contractor now. If my log-ins aren't active by eight o'clock tomorrow morning, the treasury department flags my IP address."
Dominic finished lining up the third pair of shoes. He stood up slowly, his height filling the small room, his eyes turning to me in the dim light of the hallway.
"The treasury department won't be checking your IP address, Elena," he said, walking toward me until I had to step back into the corridor to keep from touching his chest. "Because by eight o'clock tomorrow morning, your firm is going to receive a letter stating that you have taken an exclusive, permanent retainer with Verano Holdings."
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"I won't sign it," I whispered.
"You will," Dominic said, his voice dropping into that quiet, terrifying certainty that had once made him the youngest boss in the five boroughs. "Because if you don't, I’ll have my lawyers file for full custody of my sons before the family courts open at nine. And you know exactly how many judges in this state owe their seats to my father’s ledger."
