Chapter 9 - The Blood on the Wedding Day
Saturday morning. The wedding day.
The St. Regis ballroom in Manhattan was breathtaking. Thousands of white orchids hung from the ceiling. A ten-piece orchestra tuned their instruments near the altar. Hundreds of elite guests—politicians, judges, underworld bosses, and financial titans—sat in gilded chairs, waiting for the ceremony to begin.
In the private groom’s suite behind the altar, Dominic stood before the tall mirror, adjusting the cuffs of his black tuxedo.
The door opened without a knock.
Anthony Russo walked in. The aging mafia patriarch wore a bespoke white tuxedo jacket, a gold Rolex gleaming on his wrist. Behind him stood four armed bodyguards.
“Well, my boy,” Russo said, flashing a wide, confident smile that didn't reach his cold eyes. “Today’s the day. The Russo and Mercer families become an unstoppable empire. Are you ready?”
Dominic turned around slowly. He didn't speak. He just looked at Russo with a gaze so heavy, so completely devoid of warmth, that the older man’s smile faltered.
“What’s with that look?” Russo asked, his tone hardening. “You look like you’re attending a funeral instead of your own wedding.”
“In a way, I am,” Dominic said.
His voice—rich, resonant, perfectly clear—echoed off the marble walls of the suite.
Russo stopped dead in his tracks. His eyes widened in absolute, blind horror as his brain processed the sound.
“You... you spoke,” Russo whispered, taking a half-step back. “Your voice... you’re hearing me?”
“For the first time in three years, Anthony,” Dominic said, stepping forward. “And do you know what the first thing I heard this morning was? The sound of Dr. Hale singing like a canary in my holding cell.”
Russo’s face drained of all color. He threw his hand up, signaling his bodyguards. “Kill him—”
Before the guards could even reach for their shoulder holsters, the heavy oak doors of the suite crashed open.
Grant Bell and six of Dominic’s elite security operatives swarmed the room like a pack of wolves. Automatic weapons clicked and locked, laser sights painting red dots across the foreheads of Russo’s men before they could draw a single weapon.
“Drop your pieces,” Grant ordered, his voice echoing like thunder.
Russo’s guards looked at the tactical gear, looked at Dominic’s cold, unforgiving eyes, and slowly let their hands drop, sliding their weapons to the floor.
Russo’s knees buckled slightly. He gripped the edge of the dressing table to steady himself. “Dominic... wait. We can talk about this. It was business—just business! Ethan’s death, the lab, all of it—we can split the New York ports fifty-fifty!”
Dominic walked right up to Russo, towering over him by half a head.
“Business,” Dominic repeated softly. He grabbed Russo by the lapel of his expensive white jacket, lifting him off the floor with one hand. “You killed my brother. You trapped me in a cage of silence for three years. And you thought you could hand me a bride and call it square.”
“Dominic!”
The door to the suite flew open.
Vanessa stood on the threshold, wearing her multi-thousand-dollar ivory wedding dress, her hair and makeup flawless. She had heard the shouting as she approached the groom's room.
She stopped, looking from her father hanging limply from Dominic’s grip, to the armed guards, and finally to Dominic’s cold, blazing eyes.
“What is the meaning of this?!” Vanessa shrieked, marching into the room. “The guests are waiting! The ceremony starts in ten minutes! Father, what are you doing in here—?”
“Your father is resigning from the board, Vanessa,” Dominic said, his voice cutting through her panic like a razor blade. He dropped Anthony Russo onto the floor like a sack of garbage.
Russo scrambled backward, gasping for air, clutching his chest.
Vanessa stared at Dominic, her chest heaving, realization slowly dawning behind her manicured facade. “You... you can hear. You’ve been playing us.”
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“Every single second,” Dominic said. He walked past her toward the door, stopping just inches from her shoulder. “The wedding is canceled, Vanessa. Tell your guests to go home. If I ever see your father, your family, or anyone connected to your name within fifty miles of my properties again, I won't just take your hearing. I’ll take everything else.”
He walked out of the suite, leaving the wreckage of the Russo empire behind him in the dust.
