Chapter 6

Morning sunlight cut through the blinds of Aria’s apartment, carving the room into fragments of gold and shadow. The air still carried him, Dominic, the scent of smoke, rain, and danger. Her sheets were twisted, clinging to her like a secret she didn’t know how to bury.

She hadn’t slept much. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw flashes of him , his jaw clenched in restraint, his voice rough with filthy words. She’d thought she understood power before; she’d written about men who owned the city from behind boardroom walls. But Dominic Valente wasn’t like them. He didn’t own the city; the city bent to him.

Now, every thought was war.

The journalist in her screamed to move on, to write, to file the story and end it.

The woman in her couldn’t stop replaying the feel of his hands, the way he'd played her like a piano, the way danger and desire had tangled so completely that she no longer knew where one ended and the other began.

Her camera sat on the counter, a silent witness. The memory card inside it held images worth more than money, more than truth, maybe more than her life. And she knew it.

Still, she didn’t reach for it. Not yet.

She turned on the coffee machine, letting the hum fill the apartment. It was the only sound that didn’t remind her of him. But even then, she caught herself wondering what he was doing. Whether he was thinking about her too. Whether that night had meant anything, or if she was just another name, another secret, another risk.

Across the city, Dominic sat in the backseat of his car, the skyline flashing by like a pulse. He hadn’t gone to the office. He couldn’t.

He told himself it was because of business, because the flash drive she’d taken might contain more than he’d anticipated. But deep down, he knew that wasn’t all. Something about her had lodged under his skin, sharp and inescapable.

He’d watched her in the quiet stillness, their eyes meeting longer than they should have, before he finally left.

The way she’d curled into herself, unaware that she’d stepped into a world she couldn’t walk back from.

Now, he was paying for that moment of hesitation.

She had something that could ruin him.

And worse, she’d become something he wanted.

He looked out the tinted window, the city rushing past. His driver said nothing, trained not to. The silence was filled only with the faint echo of her voice, soft, defiant, trembling between fear and fascination.

He wasn’t supposed to care.

He wasn’t supposed to remember.

But he did.

Her lights were still on. Aria, probably pacing, maybe writing, completely unaware that a man like him was watching.

Dominic’s hands rested on his biceps, veins tense. He’d done far worse things with these hands, things that built his father’s empire and kept it standing. His father… the old bastard. Ruthless, feared, worshiped. A man who could order death and sip whiskey in the same breath.

You’re not built for softness, son. The words were carved into his memory, branded deeper than any scar. His father had raised him to be a weapon, not a man. And somewhere along the line, Dominic had become one.

He exhaled sharply, eyes narrowing on the faint outline of her window. She shouldn’t mean this much. Feelings were liabilities. Affection was the slowest form of death in his world. Yet here he was, parked in the dark, watching a woman who didn’t belong anywhere near his life.

You’ll ruin her, the voice in his head warned, cold and certain. Or she’ll ruin you.

Either way, the end would bleed.

By noon, Aria was pacing. She’d tried to write, to drown herself in words, but her thoughts kept circling back to him, his threat, his warning, his promise that she wasn’t safe.

She hated that he was right.

She’d spent years chasing dangerous men, but this was the first time she’d felt the danger was personal. The kind that didn’t just follow you , it marked you.

A knock on her door froze her mid-step.

Once. Twice. Then silence.

Her pulse jumped, wild and uneven. She crossed the room quietly, every sound amplified. The creak of the floorboard, the whisper of fabric.

When she looked through the peephole, no one was there.

But on the floor, half-folded and soaked from the rain outside, was an unmarked envelope.

Inside: one photograph.

Her.

Last night.

In his arms.

The note beneath it was written in ink so dark it bled into the paper:

“You should’ve stayed away.”

Aria’s fingers trembled as she read it again and again. The words were a warning, and a claim.

And for the first time since she’d met Dominic Valente, she realized she wasn’t just chasing the story anymore.

She was the story.

“Not today,” she muttered, grabbing her phone.

Her thumbs flew over the screen.

Aria: Nora, Caleb, can we meet at the café near the office? Something came up. Urgent.

Three dots blinked, then Caleb replied:

Caleb: You okay?

Aria: Just come. Please.

An hour later, she sat in the corner booth of their usual café, hands wrapped around a mug of coffee. Her mind replayed the moment over and over, the silence of her hallway, the weight of the paper, the way the words seemed to pulse even now inside her bag.

Nora arrived first, dropping into the seat with her usual brisk energy. “What’s going on? You sound like someone broke into your apartment.”

“Not exactly,” Aria said, sliding the envelope across the table.

Caleb came in seconds later, windblown and wary. He caught the tension immediately. “Alright, who died?”

“Not funny,” Nora muttered.

Caleb sat. “What is this?”

Aria nodded toward the envelope. “It was on my doorstep this morning.”

He opened it, read the line, and frowned. “Someone’s threatening you?”

“I don’t know.” Aria’s voice was quiet but steady. “Could be a warning. Could be bait.”

“Bait for what?” Nora asked.

“For me to back off,” she said.

Nora crossed her arms. “You mean from Valente.”

“Yeah.”

“Aria, we’ve talked about this…”

“I know,” Aria cut in, sharper than she meant to. “I said I was done. I was done. But someone found out where I live. They know my name. That’s not random.”

Caleb leaned forward. “You think it’s him?”

She hesitated. “No. He doesn’t warn. Dominic Valente doesn’t do subtle.”

Nora frowned. “Then who?”

“That’s what I need to find out.”

Caleb groaned softly. “You realize what you’re saying, right? You’re about to walk straight back into the mess you barely crawled out of.”

Aria’s lips curved faintly, not amusement, just resolve. “Maybe. But if someone’s trying to bury this story, it means there’s still something alive underneath it.”

Nora exhaled. “God, you’re impossible.”

“Yeah,” Caleb said, sliding the paper back to her. “But that’s what makes you good.”

Aria folded the note again, slipping it into her pocket. Her coffee had gone cold, but her decision hadn’t.

“Then I guess it’s time to find out who still wants me quiet.”

The air inside Valente’s headquarters was heavy with the scent of money, steel, and loyalty bought in blood. The building was disguised as a logistics firm on the East River. Rows of cargo manifests and shipping schedules on every desk, but behind the locked glass doors, the real business thrived.

Dominic stepped into the upper office, his expression carved in stone. A cluster of men straightened immediately. Enforcers, accountants, and brokers — each one owing him more than they could ever repay.

“Talk,” he said simply.

Luca, his right-hand man, slid a file across the table. “Three of our docks were inspected this morning. Customs. Someone tipped them off.”

Dominic’s jaw ticked once. “Our shipments?”

“Clean. They didn’t find a thing. But whoever did this knows how we move.”

He said nothing for a moment, just stared at the skyline beyond the glass. The city glimmered like a promise, one he’d already sold pieces of his soul to keep.

“Find out who it was,” he said finally. “And if it was internal, make it look like an accident.”

Luca nodded and left without a word. That was the rule, obedience without hesitation, silence without question.

Dominic loosened his tie and leaned against the edge of the table, the day’s weight pressing into his shoulders. Every empire had cracks, and his were widening. Too many eyes were watching, the feds, rival families, and now Aria Cole, the journalist who’d stumbled too close to the truth.

He should’ve cut ties after the docks. Should’ve let her fall away like every other risk he’d ever buried. But there was something about her, reckless, relentless — that made him hesitate in a way no bullet ever had.

On his desk lay the same photograph she’d just received. He turned it over in his hand, the image of her pressed against him framed in shadows. A subtle smirk ghosted across his lips, half regret, half something darker.

“She has no idea what she’s stepped into,” he muttered.

From the corner, his consigliere, Marco, spoke quietly. “She’s not one of us, Dominic. Let her go before she becomes a problem.”

Dominic’s gaze hardened. “She already is.”

He slid the photo into a drawer and locked it. Outside, thunder rolled again over the river, a low, distant growl that matched the storm building inside him.

The city belonged to him. But for the first time in years, he wasn’t sure if that was still enough.

Dominic descended to the lower floors where the façade of the logistics firm peeled away. The air thickened with the sound of voices, the clatter of crates, the buzz of machines stamping counterfeit seals. Shipping manifests lined the walls, coded with numbers only a handful of men understood.

Two guards stepped aside as he passed. Down here, he didn’t need a suit or a name. Everyone knew who he was, the man who rebuilt what others burned, who turned betrayal into profit and silence into survival.

He stopped beside a table where a young broker was cataloging ledgers. “What’s our position on the Harlem route?”

“Two shipments cleared last night,” the man replied quickly. “Weapons, small arms. Headed for the docks by sunrise.”

“And the accounts?”

“Funneled through Halcyon Holdings. No trace back to us.”

Dominic nodded once. Everything had to flow, the money through shell companies, the guns through old trade routes, the information through whispers no one could trace. Every misstep was an invitation for chaos, and chaos cost blood.

He moved to the next section, the laundering wing. Machines whirred, printing fake invoices for nonexistent shipments. A few women worked behind glass panels, quietly counting cash before sealing it into marked boxes bound for offshore banks.

“Keep the cycle tight,” Dominic said to no one in particular. “Three days, no longer. I don’t want this money breathing long enough for anyone to smell it.”

They nodded without question.

As he turned to leave, Luca joined him again, phone in hand. “The Russians are getting restless. They want their shipment early.”

“They’ll wait,” Dominic said. “We control the schedule, not them.”

“They’re threatening to pull their protection.”

Dominic stopped at the foot of the stairs, his gaze sharp as glass. “Then they can protect themselves.”

There was steel in his tone, the kind that had ended wars before they began. Luca said nothing more.

Dominic returned to his office, the lights dim, the city bleeding gold through the rain. He poured himself a drink, slow and deliberate. Every empire had ghosts, and his were beginning to whisper louder.

He thought of Aria again, of the flash drive in her hands, of the look she’d given him when she swore she wasn’t afraid. She had fire, the kind that could either save him or burn everything he’d built to ash.

He downed the drink and set the glass aside. “You want the truth, cara mia,” he murmured under his breath. “You’ll find it buried beneath bodies.”

He downed the drink and set the glass aside. Silence swelled in the office, heavy and expectant.

Outside, the skyline glimmered beneath the storm, the city that fed him, the city he owned, the city that could devour him if he blinked too long.

Dominic slipped his gun beneath his jacket, the motion practiced and calm. He glanced once at the locked drawer, at the photograph inside, and something unreadable crossed his face.

Then he turned toward the door.

Rain still hammered the glass when he stepped into the hall, shadows gathering behind him like old debts.

Whatever the night had planned, he would meet it head-on. Because men like Dominic Valente didn’t wait for fate, they made it bleed first.

And somewhere across the city, Aria Cole would soon learn what that truly meant.