Chapter 4 - The Sins of the PastBefore Emma could answer, the sharp click of heels sounded on the marble hallway.
Margaret Doyle appeared at the doorway, her face set in a severe, disapproving frown. She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Dominic standing inches from Emma, the tension thick enough to cut with a knife.
"Mr. Vale," Margaret gasped, immediately shifting into protective manager mode. "Is there a problem with the service? Has this girl done something inappropriate?"
Dominic didn’t look at Margaret. His gaze remained locked on Emma’s wide, luminous brown eyes.
"Leave us, Margaret," Dominic commanded, his voice dropping an octave.
Margaret blinked, hesitation flickering across her sharp features. "Sir, if she is giving you trouble—"
"I said, leave us."
Margaret swallowed hard, cast a venomous, warning glance at Emma, and retreated down the hallway, the sound of her heels fading into silence.
Dominic turned back to Emma. The anger that had fueled his investigation overnight was suddenly warring with a strange, magnetic curiosity. She wasn't shrinking away from him. Despite her fear, she stood her ground.
"Well?" Dominic demanded softly. "Are you going to talk, or do I need to tear that diner down brick by brick to find out what you're hiding?"
Emma swallowed hard, her jaw tightening. When she finally spoke, her voice wasn't trembling; it was thick with a quiet, devastating fury.
"You think you own everything, don't you, Mr. Vale?" she whispered, her voice barely louder than a breath. "You think because your name buys police protection, political favor, and silent witnesses, that you hold the keys to everyone's life."
Dominic’s eyes narrowed dangerously. No one spoke to him that way. No one.
"Careful, Emma," he warned.
"Why should I be careful?" she challenged, stepping forward, her chest rising and falling rapidly. "You sit in this tomb of marble and gold, eating off silver plates, while the empire you inherited crushes the people living two miles south of here. My father worked at your family’s steel mill for thirty years. When the toxic waste leak poisoned the groundwater on the west side, your father’s legal team buried the medical claims. My father died coughing up blood on a cot in a county hospital, while your family vacationed in the Alps."
Dominic’s breath hitched. The words struck him like a physical blow.
"That was twenty years ago," he rasped, though the defense sounded hollow even to his own ears.
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"And nothing has changed," Emma said, tears finally spilling over her lashes, hot and unhidden. "The loansharks working the South Side streets? They wear your brand, Mr. Vale. The people at Bea’s Diner aren't charity cases. They are the collateral damage of your father’s legacy—and yours. I work here to survive, and I work there to stitch back together the bleeding pieces of the lives your empire shatters every single day."
She turned sharply, grabbed the handle of her cleaning cart, and pushed it past him down the hall, leaving Dominic standing alone in the vast, silent dining room.
