Chapter 6
The silence in the luxury perfume atelier was absolute, broken only by the ragged, painful wheezing of Lucian on the floor and the quiet, terrified whimpers of Valeria as she tried to push herself up from the scattered atomizer boxes. The bright, clear daylight from the skylights offered no warmth, only a sterile, unforgiving illumination of their total defeat.
Dominic Caradonna stood motionless. His dark, tailored trousers and casually unbuttoned white shirt were completely unruffled. The artistic tattoos on his neck, peeking just above his collar, seemed to pulse with the slow, controlled beat of his heart. He reached into his pocket, retrieved a crisp white handkerchief, and slowly, methodically wiped his knuckles, though there was no blood on them.
He dropped the handkerchief onto the scattered corks. He looked down at Valeria.
Valeria looked up at him, her fair, rosy skin now pale and streaked with mascara. Her lip was swelling rapidly from the thunderous slap. The luxurious formal dress she wore was covered in paper scent strips.
"Dominic... please," Valeria choked out, her American accent trembling so violently she could barely form the words. "They forced me... Luca said he would kill Lucian if I didn't..."
Dominic did not raise his voice. He took a slow, measured step forward, his polished leather shoes crunching over the empty boxes. He spoke with agonizing, calculated pauses, keeping his volume incredibly low. Every sentence sounded like the scraping of a blade.
"You attacked... my mother," Dominic said, his cold, intimidating eyes piercing straight through her pathetic lies. "Because someone... photographed you... with my enemy."
Valeria’s face became a portrait of absolute, paralyzing fright. She scrambled backward on her hands and knees, treating the handsome, movie-star-like man as if he were a demon emerging from the shadows.
"You think... I care about... Luca Valenti?" Dominic continued, his voice barely a whisper, yet commanding the entire room. "Luca is a dead man... walking. But you... you brought this treason... into my house. You put your hands... on my blood."
"We can fix this!" Lucian gurgled from the other side of the room, rolling onto his side, spitting a tooth onto the crimson carpet. "Dominic, listen to me! The Valentis are moving on the docks tonight! They used Valeria to get the security codes to your shipping containers! If you kill us, you won't know where the hit is coming from!"
Dominic slowly turned his head to look at Lucian. The older man was a broken, bleeding mess, desperately trying to leverage the very betrayal that had condemned him.
"You think... I need you... to find my own docks?" Dominic asked softly.
"They have fifty men, Dominic!" Lucian coughed, his face pale. "They are going to wipe out your entire northern crew! I can give you the manifest! I can give you Luca's exact location!"
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Dominic stared at him for a long, silent moment. The bright, vivid colors of the room seemed to sharpen as the Mafia Boss processed the tactical information.
"Speak," Dominic ordered quietly. "And if you pause... even once... I will let Salvatore... remove your tongue."
