The trip was clean, quiet, and deliberate. Vince Carrow’s heavy leather boot hooked around Clara’s ankle just as her back foot left the floor.

The trip was clean, quiet, and deliberate.

Vince Carrow’s heavy leather boot hooked around Clara’s ankle just as her back foot left the floor.

She didn't even have time to gasp.

The tray tilted. Heavy cast-iron bowls loaded with boiling seafood stew and ceramic boats of scalding marinara slid across the polished surface. Clara tried to catch herself, but her knees buckled under the sudden shift of forty pounds of leaden iron and china.

She slammed down onto the hardwood floor with a sickening thud.

An instant later, a wave of liquid fire hit her chest, neck, and lower face.

The boiling tomato sauce burned through her thin cotton uniform instantly. The scalding oil seared into her collarbone, soaking into the fabric and gluing the hot cloth directly to her sensitive skin.

Then came the sound.

It was not a controlled cry. It was a high-pitched, shattered scream of pure, agonizing pain that echoed off the high tin ceiling of Bellini’s Table.

The entire dining room went dead silent.

Forks stopped halfway to open mouths. Wine glasses hovered. The line cooks in the back stopped shouting.

Clara curled into a ball on the sauce-slicked floor, her hands hovering above her blistered neck, afraid to touch her own skin. Tears cut clean tracks through the red sauce on her face. Her chest heaved as she sobbed, completely broken, completely exposed in front of seventy staring strangers.

“Oh God,” she gasped, her voice raw, ragged, and trembling. “Oh God, it hurts... please, it hurts...”

Vince Carrow burst out laughing.

“Jesus, watch where you’re going, whale!” Vince sneered, wiping a tiny red drop from his leather jacket. “You almost ruined my suit!”

Before his laughter could fade, a shadow fell over table twelve.

It was not a fast movement. It was the deliberate, terrifying approach of a storm that had dropped its velvet gloves.

Dominic Hale crossed the room in three long strides.

He didn't speak. He didn't look at Vince. He didn't order his men.

Dominic dropped to his knees.

He didn't care about his thousand-dollar tailored wool trousers. He didn't care about his polished leather shoes. He sank right into the puddle of scalding sauce, shattered ceramic, and hot seafood, taking the wet, burning mess directly onto his clothes.

“Clara,” Dominic said.

His voice wasn't the cold, dangerous baritone the neighborhood feared. It was low, raspy, and filled with a raw, terrifying panic that no man in New York had ever heard from him before.

He reached out, his broad, calloused hands hovering over her trembling shoulders.

“Don't touch the cloth!” Dominic commanded the air, his eyes wild as he assessed her burns. “Frank! Get ice! Get clean wet towels! NOW!”

Frank Bellini practically vaulted over the service bar, his face white as paper.

Dominic carefully slid one hand under Clara’s head, lifting her out of the hot liquid, while his other hand wrapped around her broad waist, pulling her upper body into his lap. He didn't care that the marinara soaked into his crisp white dress shirt. He didn't care about the grease staining his chest.

“Look at me, Clara,” Dominic growled gently, his face inches from hers. “Look at my eyes. Don't look at them. Look at me.”

Clara opened her eyes through a fog of excruciating pain and hot tears.

She saw the King of Belmont—the man before whom mob bosses and city officials bowed—kneeling in filth, his dark grey eyes burning with an intense, fierce devotion that made her heart leap even through the agony.

“Dominic...” she sobbed, her hand clutching his soaked cuff. “I spilled... I broke the plates... I’m sorry...”

“Stop apologizing,” Dominic whispered fiercely, his thumb gently wiping a tear from her cheek, careful to avoid the reddened skin near her jaw. “Don't you ever apologize to anyone in this room.”

Behind them, Vince Carrow made the fatal mistake of opening his mouth again.

“Hey, pal,” Vince barked, standing up from table twelve. “You gonna let this fat broad ruin our dinner, or what? Who the hell are you anyway—"

Dominic didn't turn around.

He didn't even look up from Clara’s face.

He simply raised his left hand and flicked two fingers.

In less than half a second, Dominic’s two lieutenants—Marco and Leo—were behind table twelve.

Marco grabbed Vince by the back of his neck and smashed his face flat into the wooden table with a force that shattered Vince’s nose instantly. Blood sprayed across the white tablecloth.

The four other men from Brooklyn reached for their jackets, but Leo drew a heavy matte-black pistol, pressing the cold barrel directly under the chin of the largest man before he could clear his holster.

“Sit down,” Leo whispered calmly. “Or I paint the window with what’s inside your head.”

The entire table went frozen with horror.

Vince whimpered on the table, blood streaming into his eyes. “Who... who are you people?”

Dominic stood up smoothly, lifting Clara into his arms as if she weighed nothing at all. He cradled her broad frame securely against his broad chest, her head resting against his neck, her small hands clutching his collar.

He turned toward table twelve.

The temperature in the room plummeted to absolute zero.

“My name is Dominic Hale,” he said softly.

Vince’s eyes went wide with pure, unadulterated terror. He began to shake so hard his chair rattled against the floor.

“Mr. Hale...” Vince gasped, choking on his own blood. “I... I didn't know... I swear to God I didn't know she was yours—"

“She isn't mine,” Dominic said, his voice cold enough to freeze blood. “She’s a human being. And you are going to learn what happens when you touch a human being in my neighborhood.”

Dominic looked at Marco.