Chapter 4 - The Midnight Arrival
The rusty lock of my second-floor apartment door clicked open, and I pushed it back wearily.
"Quiet," I whispered, turning back to look at the towering shadow standing in my cramped hallway. Dominic had followed me in a black sedan, his bodyguards trailing a block behind. "Mrs. Petrov has the ear of a bat, and if she wakes up, she'll interrogate us both in Russian."
Dominic stepped inside, ducking slightly to clear the low doorframe. His broad shoulders instantly made my tiny living room look suffocatingly small. He didn't look at the peeling wallpaper, the secondhand couch with the duct-taped arm, or the single plastic potted plant by the window. His eyes scanned the room as if searching for ghosts.
"She's sleeping in my room," I murmured, hanging my jacket on the peg by the door. My hands were shaking again. Panic was beginning to claw its way up my throat. What was I doing? I had just invited Chicago's most feared mafia boss into the same room where my four-year-old daughter lay sleeping.
"Show me," he whispered.
I walked down the narrow, creaky hallway and pushed open my bedroom door. A small nightlight shaped like a glowing star plugged into the wall cast a warm, golden halo over the small twin bed in the corner.
Lily was curled up on her side, one small hand tucked under her cheek. Her dark, unruly curls—the exact same shade as Dominic's—sprawled across the pillow. A half-read picture book lay open on the floor beside her bed.
Dominic froze in the doorway.
He looked like a man standing at the edge of an abyss. His breath hitched, a harsh, ragged sound that echoed softly in the quiet room. He took one slow, hesitant step forward, then another, his boots making no sound on the worn carpet.
He knelt beside the bed.
Up close, the resemblance was undeniable, almost cruel in its precision. Lily had inherited his sharp, elegant jawline, the stubborn tilt of her nose, and even in sleep, there was a fierce, independent set to her brow that mirrored his own.
Dominic’s large, calloused hand hovered over the edge of the blanket. He didn't dare touch her, as if terrified that if he applied the slightest pressure, she would vanish like smoke. A single tear broke free from his lashes, cutting a clean path through the stubble on his cheek before dropping silently onto the hardwood floor.
"Lily," he breathed, the name tasting like a prayer on his lips.
Suddenly, Lily stirred.
She scrunched up her nose, rolled onto her back, and slowly fluttered her heavy eyelids open. Big, luminous hazel eyes—eyes that were a carbon copy of Dominic's—blinked sleepily in the dim light.
She stared up at the strange, towering man kneeling beside her bed with broad shoulders and a scar over his brow.
Most four-year-olds would have screamed bloody murder at a strange, dangerous-looking man in their bedroom at midnight.
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Lily did not.
She just blinked, completely unfazed, and said in her usual, hyper-articulate, slightly raspy morning voice: "You're sitting in my spot. And you're way too big for that chair."
