Chapter 7 - The Confession in the Rain"Are you hurt?"
Dominic’s voice was uncharacteristically gentle as he stopped inches from her. He reached out, his long fingers hesitating for a fraction of a second before lightly touching the dark bruise blooming on her cheekbone.
Emma flinched, not from pain, but from the raw, overwhelming intensity in his eyes.
"I... I'm fine," she whispered, her voice trembling for the first time. "Why are you here, Mr. Vale? This isn't your fight."
"Everything in this city is my fight, Emma," Dominic murmured, his gaze dropping to her bruised lip before rising back to her eyes. "And nobody touches what belongs to the Vale estate."
Emma’s breath hitched. "I don't belong to you."
"No," Dominic corrected softly, a faint, rare ghost of a smile touching the corner of his lips. "Perhaps I belong to you."
Before Emma could process the confession, the wire sirens wailed in the distance. Police cars were converging on the block—local precinct officers on Dominic’s payroll, arriving just in time to clean up the mess and haul Marcone’s unconscious thugs away.
"Get Bea to a hospital," Dominic commanded over his shoulder to Mason, before turning back to Emma. "And you... you're coming with me."
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"I have to clean up—"
"The diner is closed, Emma," Dominic interrupted, taking off his expensive wool trench coat and draping it gently over her shaking shoulders. The fabric was heavy, still radiating his body heat, smelling faintly of rain, cedar, and gunpowder. "We’re going home."
