Chapter 5
Dominic read the message twice before handing the phone back.
“They’re not bluffing,” he said quietly.
“What do they want?” I asked.
“Control of the ports we took from them,” Marco said. “They’ve wanted it back for three years.”
“And now they have leverage,” Rourke added. “Emily.”
I felt the room tilt slightly. “So this doesn’t end until they get what they want, or someone stops them.”
“We stop them,” Dominic said, voice hard. “We don’t negotiate with people who send hitmen into my home.”
“Dominic,” I said carefully, “maybe I should leave. Disappear somewhere they can’t find me. If I’m gone, I’m not leverage anymore.”
“No,” he said immediately.
“You said yourself you’d protect me either way, even if I left.”
“That was before they threatened to take something of mine,” he said. “Emily, if you leave now, they’ll see it as weakness, and they’ll come after you anyway, without me there to stop them.”
Marco spoke up quietly. “He’s right. Running doesn’t make you safer. It makes you an easier target.”
I sank into a chair, exhausted. “Then what’s the plan?”
Dominic and Rourke exchanged a look.
“We draw them out,” Dominic said. “Somewhere we control. Somewhere we can end this permanently.”
“You mean a trap,” I said.
“I mean protecting my family,” Dominic said. “All of it. Including you.”
That night, the house buzzed with quiet preparation—men positioning, plans forming, weapons checked and rechecked.
I found myself standing in the doorway of Dominic’s study, watching him study a map of the docks where the Calloways were expected to make their move.
“You don’t have to be part of this,” he said without looking up. “You could stay upstairs, stay safe.”
“I’ve been hiding since the moment I saw that flash drive,” I said. “I’m done hiding.”
He looked up then, something like respect flickering across his face.
“You married a stranger to survive,” he said. “You didn’t ask for any of this.”
“No,” I agreed. “But I’m not the same woman who married you four days ago.”
“Neither am I,” he said quietly.
I stepped further into the room. “Dominic, if something happens tomorrow—”
“Nothing is happening to you,” he said firmly.
“That’s not what I meant.” I took a breath. “If something happens to either of us, I don’t want the last thing between us to be a lie about what this marriage means.”
He set down the map, crossing the room until he stood in front of me.
“It was never a lie,” he said. “It was fear. Fear of caring about someone the Calloways could use against me. And now they’re using you anyway.”
“So caring about me didn’t protect me,” I said. “It just made you honest too late.”
“Then let me be honest now,” he said, his voice low and unguarded for the first time since our wedding. “I don’t want a quiet divorce when this is over, Emily. I want a real marriage. If you’ll still have me after everything I’ve cost you.”
Before I could answer, Rourke’s voice echoed down the hallway.
“Boss, they took the bait. They’re moving toward the docks tonight, an hour early.”
