All Chapters of Unholy Matrimony: Chapter 151 - Chapter 160

176 Chapters

Chapter 151 – The Offering

DominikThe Tower is a fortress of glass and steel, standing eight hundred feet above the grime of the city. From my office on the top floor, New York looks like a circuit board. A grid of lights and energy that I usually control with a flip of a switch.I’m standing by the window, looking north toward Queens. The fire at the distribution hub has been extinguished for days, but I can still see the scar it left."He’s here," Enzo says from the doorway."Send him in," I say. "Alone."Enzo nods and steps back.A moment later, Costas walks in.The Greek Don looks ten years older than the last time I saw him. He’s a large man, usually brimming with the boisterous energy of someone who eats too much lamb and drinks too much Ouzo. Today, he looks hollowed out. His skin is grey. His suit hangs loosely on his frame.He stops in the center of the room. He doesn't take the seat I offered.He bows.It’s not a nod. It’s not a respectful dip of the head. It is a formal, deep bow from the waist. A g

Chapter 152 – Ghost Stories

EveThe silence in the house is heavy, pressing against my eardrums like deep water. I tighten the sash of my silk robe as I descend the grand staircase, the only sound the soft brush of fabric against the marble steps.Dominik didn't come to bed until four this morning. I felt him slide in beside me, radiating a harsh heat, smelling of antiseptic soap and the copper tang of the city. He held me for two hours, his muscles coiled tight even in sleep, before rising and vanishing again before dawn.He’s hunting. I know that. He’s out there tearing the city apart to find the source of the rot, while I’m stuck here, wandering the halls of the fortress.I reach the bottom of the stairs. Two guards are stationed by the front door. They snap to attention when they see me. Their eyes are tired. No one is sleeping well."Good morning, Mrs. Grimaldi," Francesco says. He looks like he’s aged five years in the last three days."Morning Francesco. Have you had coffee?" I ask. God, I miss real coff

Chapter 153 – Paranoia

DominikThe house feels like a lung that can't quite fill with air.It’s been twenty-four hours since the rattle appeared on the dining table. No more drones. No more messages. Just the oppressive weight of knowing that someone in this fortress, someone I pay, someone I trust, is watching us.I’m in my study, the desk covered in files. Not digital. Paper. I don't trust the servers anymore. Vincent sweeps them every hour, but if they could loop a feed, they could be reading my emails. Tracking the reports from my investigators.I look at the organizational chart of the Family spread out in front of me.Capos. Soldiers. Associates.Some faces I’ve known for as long as I’ve been alive. People I’ve broken bread with. People whose children’s tuition I pay.I pick up a red marker to circle a name. Salvatore. He runs the Bronx. He’s been complaining about the new port taxes. Could he be bought?I cross it out. Sal is too stupid to loop a camera feed.I circle another. Moretti. He handles th

Chapter 154 – Rough Trade

DominikI’m staring at a ledger from 2018, tracing a line of credit that originated in Naples and vanished in the Cayman Islands. My eyes are burning. My head feels like it’s being squeezed in a hydraulic press.Somewhere in the house, a floorboard creaks.My hand goes instantly to the gun sitting on top of the spreadsheets."It’s me," Eve says from the doorway.I don't let go of the gun immediately. My reflexes are wired tight, a tripwire that’s been pulled taut for too many hours straight."You should be asleep," I say, my voice sounding like gravel grinding in a cement mixer."I can't sleep," she says. "The bed is too big. And the room is too quiet without your annoying snoring."She walks in. She’s wearing a silk slip that clings to her curves, the hem brushing her thighs. She’s barefoot. Her hair is loose, a dark cascade over her shoulders.She doesn't look tired. She looks restless.“I don’t snore.”She walks past the leather armchairs and comes around the desk. She stops right

Chapter 155 – The Italian Connection

DominikThe atmosphere inside the mansion mimics the crushing pressure of the deep ocean.Every breath requires conscious effort. The walls seem to inch closer together with each passing hour, the vastness of the estate offering no relief from the suffocating reality of our situation. We’re sealed inside a beautifully appointed submarine, listening to the hull groan under the weight of an unseen predator circling in the dark.Standing by the window in my study, the heavy drapes pulled back just enough to see the perimeter detail marching through the gloom, my mind turns over the same fractured pieces of the puzzle. A sharp knock at the heavy oak doors breaks the quiet."Enter," my voice cuts through the stillness.Stefano Farina steps into the study, closing the door firmly behind him. My finance consigliere is a man of immaculate precision. His suits are always perfectly tailored, his tie knotted with mathematical exactness. Tonight, however, the pristine veneer shows cracks. Dark

Chapter 156 – Breaking Point

DominikSleep deprivation is a slow-acting poison. It corrodes the edges of my vision and fills my joints with lead. Four days of relentless adrenaline have carved hollows under my eyes, leaving me operating on pure, mechanical instinct.Sunlight bleeds through the heavy drapes of the master suite, casting long shadows across the Persian rug. Sitting at the small writing desk in the corner, Eve is already awake. Her fingers fly across the keyboard of her laptop, her brow furrowed in concentration.Stepping behind her chair, my hands find the tension knotted in her shoulders. She leans back into my touch, exhaling a long, slow breath.Her natural scent is changing as her pregnancy progresses. She smells like dark amber and crushed orchids. It’s a heavy, intoxicating scent that bypasses my lungs and settles directly in my bloodstream."I can think of better things for you to be doing than staring at that screen," my thumbs press into the tight muscles at the base of her neck.“The log

Chapter 157 – The Distance

EnzoWorking for a man like Dominik Grimaldi requires a specific kind of calibration. You learn to read the atmospheric pressure in a room before you even cross the threshold. You learn to interpret silence.Over the last decade, my survival, and his, has depended on my ability to anticipate his violent shifts in momentum.Right now, the momentum is entirely inward. The machine is eating itself.Standing by the reinforced doors of the armory, my gaze tracks Dominik as he meticulously disassembles and reassembles his sidearm. It’s the fourth time he’s done it in the last hour. The sharp, metallic snick of the slide seating into place is the only sound in the sub-basement.He looks terrible. The slow-acting poison of sleep deprivation has carved deep, bruised hollows beneath his eyes. His movements, usually fluid and predatory, carry a jagged, mechanical rigidity. The tailored lines of his dark suit hang slightly loose on his frame, a testament to the meals he’s skipped and the punish

Chapter 158 – Dead End

DominikThe East River cuts a dark, icy swath alongside the perimeter of Sutton Place.Standing in the shadows of the tactical vans, the heavy Kevlar vest presses against my chest. Another weight added to the chaotic pressure building in my skull. The air is frigid, but the cold does nothing to dull the predatory hum vibrating through my veins.My men fan out around the property line, moving with lethal, synchronized precision. These are the apex predators of my organization. They don't ask questions, they just execute the geometry of violence.Enzo stands exactly two feet to my right.He hasn’t left my side since we walked out of the armory. Every step hes taken has been within my peripheral vision. His hands are locked on his weapon, his focus directed entirely outward at the wrought-iron gates of the townhouse.Raising a single, gloved fist, the signal is given.The breach is instantaneous and devastating. We don’t bother picking locks or disabling the keypad. A shaped explosive c

Chapter 159 – The Decoy

DominikThe speedometer needle buries itself past ninety. Swerving through the sparse, late-night traffic on FDR Drive, the heavy sedan vibrates with the power of the V8 engine.It still isn't fast enough.A dull ache throbs in my knuckles where they grip the leather steering wheel, the skin bruised from splitting Enzo's lip.The guilt is there, buried under layers of suffocating rage, but the pressure inside my skull is a mechanical vise tightening with every passing mile. The bulletproof glass seals out the noise of the city, leaving me in a blessedly quiet cabin, but it does nothing to stop the relentless grinding in my own head. We hit a dead end in Sutton Place. Outplayed. Outmaneuvered by an enemy so deeply embedded in my syndicate I'm flying completely blind. The harsh, electronic trill of my phone shatters the quiet of the car.My gaze snaps to the center console. The screen illuminates, casting a stark white glow against the dark dashboard.Eve.Relief, sharp and sudden,

Chapter 160 – The Puppeteer

DominikConsciousness returns in jagged, agonizing fragments.There is no smooth transition from the dark. Just a violent collision with reality, heralded by the metallic taste of copper flooding my mouth and a crushing pressure in my chest.A sharp, ammonia-soaked rag is shoved viciously under my nose.My head jerks back involuntarily, snapping against solid steel. The movement sends a shockwave of nausea through my system. My eyelids feel like they’ve been sewn shut, crusted with dried blood and grit. Forcing them open requires a monumental effort, yielding only a blurred, swimming view of a harsh overhead lightbulb swaying on a frayed wire.The chemical agent they used at the door is still lingering in my bloodstream, leaving my extremities numb and my brain clouded in a thick, toxic fog.But the pain is vivid. It’s a localized map of trauma.Every breath grinds against what feels like at least two cracked ribs on my left side. My right eye is swollen completely shut. The metallic

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