1. Vengeful Bastard
DOMINIC
Giovanni Romano.
Perfectly trimmed salt-and-pepper hair. That smug, punchable smirk. Even in a cropped frame, the guy reeked of money and power. The Armani suit. The posture. The superiority. Everything about him screamed untouchable.
Fucker.
Murderous bastard.
Dominic’s jaw tightened until his teeth ached. “You showing me this for a reason, Cap?” His tone came out rough. “Tell me this piece of shit’s finally getting what’s coming to him. Because if he’s still walking around—”
“Dom.”
Henry let out a weary sigh and dragged a hand down his face. The guy looked like he hadn’t slept in a week. The lines around his mouth were deeper, the gray in his hair sharper. He sank into his beat-up chair and leaned forward, elbows braced on the cluttered desk.
“I shouldn’t be doing this,” he said quietly.
Dominic frowned. “Doing what?”
Henry’s gaze lifted. “Crossing a line.”
Dominic’s pulse picked up. “You’re starting to make me nervous here.”
“Are you okay?” Henry asked suddenly.
Dominic blinked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Henry pressed his fingers to the photo, forcing Dominic’s eyes back to Giovanni’s smug face. “If—and I mean if—I find a way to bring this guy down, can I count on you to see it through? To keep your cool?”
Giovanni Romano. Head of the Romano crime family. The kind of man who smiled while people bled for him.
Dominic had been chasing that smile for years.
And Alessandra—Angelo’s kid sister—had chased it too, right up until the day she disappeared.
She’d been young, smart, relentless. A journalist who thought she could take down a mafia family.
Then one day, she vanished.
No trace. No clue. No closure.
Dominic had theories. She’d stumbled onto something she shouldn’t have. Poked the wrong bear. Got caught in a world where silence bought survival.
And Giovanni Romano was right in the middle of it.
Three damn years, and Dominic still couldn’t prove a thing. Giovanni was clean on paper, but Dominic had found others—Marino, Rossi—names that circled Alessandra’s like vultures.
Angelo—his partner—hadn’t lasted a year after Alessandra disappeared. Grief ate him up. The not-knowing. The helplessness. He’d taken his own life.
Angelo had been like blood to Dominic. Alessandra had been like family.
Those bastards had taken them both.
“I can handle it,” Dominic said.
Henry studied him for a beat, then asked, “Could anyone have come across a photo of you when they looked into her?”
“No.” Dominic shook his head, flat and sure.
“I need you to be damn sure.”
“I am. She was Angelo’s half-sister—messy family shit with his dad. A love child. Nobody knew.” He hated the way the words tasted. “Why?”
Henry sucked in his cheek, a sound Dominic had learned to read as unease. Then the captain opened the top drawer and slid a worn brown envelope across the desk with a thump that read like a verdict.
Dominic’s hand went to it before his brain caught up. “What’s this?”
“Your new identity,” Henry said. “You’re going undercover.”
“How?” he asked, breath tight.
Henry kept his voice low. “We’ve got a CI—Marco Loretti. He’s your link. But I need you to promise you won’t snap. If you blow this, I pull you out so fast your head will spin.”
“If I was going to go rogue, I would’ve already done it,” Dominic cut in. He felt the old anger flare—sharp and useful. “You know me.”
“You’ll be with him a lot.” Henry tapped the envelope. “Marco engineers a situation—Giovanni’s regular driver gets sick. Marco vouches for you. You step in. You prove yourself with an incident we stage so you look good. You get the job: driver, bodyguard, the works. You’ll be close to Giovanni. You’ll see everything. You protect him, you listen, you learn. Can you do that without going off the rails?”
Dominic’s jaw clenched. “Yes.”
“And if you find he’s responsible?”
“I won’t take matters into my own hands.”
He meant it. He’d been the one who pulled Angelo back when revenge burned him. He’d preached patience, process—the right way—even when Angelo wanted blood. Angelo hadn’t listened long enough.
Dominic could not let that happen again. Not on his watch.
Henry’s eyes narrowed. “You’re only on this because you passed your psych eval, and I downplayed how close you were to Alessandra. I’m putting my neck out. Don’t make me regret it.”
“Henry, I’ve got this.”
“It’s Angelo we’re talking about.”
“I can do it.”
“Even if Romano’s not the one, you might uncover who is.”
“Then I’ll find them. And if I screw up, it’s on me. I’ll walk away. Swear on my badge.”
That badge meant something. His father had died wearing it. Swearing on it wasn’t words—it was blood.
Henry studied him for a moment, then gave a short nod. “Normally I’d tell you to do your homework, but you already have.”
“Yeah.”
“Take the night. If you’re still in tomorrow, I’ll sign off.”
Dominic stood, the chair scraping the floor. He grabbed the envelope. “Thanks, Henry.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” Henry warned. “If you blow this, I’ll have your ass.”
“Noted.”
Dominic walked out with the envelope in hand, the weight of it settling deep in his gut. This was it—his one shot to make things right.
And he wasn’t about to waste it.
***
He’d keep his first name. Lose his last.
Dominic Russo.
A driver.
A getaway driver.
An only child from a tough neighborhood. Raised by a single mother who did everything she could while his father disappeared into the wind. After high school, he’d ended up in a mechanic shop, learning everything there was to know about cars. How they moved, how they breathed, how to make them purr.
Then came the bills. The side jobs. Late-night runs for easy cash that weren’t so easy anymore. One gig went sideways, and he paid the price: jail time, a record, and a lifetime reminder that bad choices leave marks.
Didn’t stop him. He got smarter. Faster. Better. Became the kind of driver who could disappear before anyone even realized what happened.
That was his story now. His truth.
Henry, crafty bastard that he was, had tacked on three years to his age. Thirty-one instead of twenty-eight. Didn’t matter. The job aged him enough already.
He flipped through the identity packet again. Marco Loretti’s photo stared back at him. A wiry kid with messy brown hair and eyes that had seen too much for someone barely eighteen.
Marco.
Dominic didn’t need the full backstory. He already knew enough. They’d run together before, pulled jobs that could’ve gone either way. Met through Dominic’s cousin Anthony during a stint behind bars. Shared cells, secrets, and near misses. Marco had earned his trust the hard way.
This time, though, the stakes were different. The kind that didn’t offer do-overs.
Dominic knew his way around an engine, but this? This wasn’t about horsepower or speed. No, it was about survival. One wrong move, and the entire op would crash before it began. He’d get some prep time, sure, but not enough to erase the tension gnawing at his gut.
He lifted his glass of scotch and took a slow sip, the burn steadying him. The board on the wall in front of him looked like a crime scene... because it was. Angelo had built it piece by piece when Alessandra vanished.
It had started as a desperate attempt to find her. Over time, it had turned into something else—a map of monsters.
Three names dominated the center:
Giovanni Romano — king of the Romano empire.Luca Marino — the golden heir to the Marino family.Stefano Rossi — a reckless wildcard with an ego that could get him killed.
Their timelines lined up with Alessandra’s disappearance, but the trail was too thin to call. No solid lead. No smoking gun. Just three men with dirty hands and too many secrets.
Luca Marino and the Romano family had ties deep enough to bleed. That made this mission worth it—if Dominic got close to Giovanni, he might pull threads that led straight to Luca.
Rossi was the wildcard. Hot temper, zero impulse control. The kind of guy who’d start a fight just to remind everyone he could. He’d been seen around Alessandra’s usual haunts—bars, back rooms, dives where information and bodies both went missing. If anyone fit the profile of a man who’d snapped, it was him.
Angelo had spent years digging through precinct reports, favors, and whispers. Every connection, every pattern, every family feud pinned somewhere on that board. That’s how he’d found it—Giovanni Romano’s weakness.
His daughter.
Serena.
Twenty-one. Untouchable. The kind of woman who lived behind gates and guards. No job listed. No school on record. Protected like a state secret. Giovanni kept closer watch on her than he did on his own operations.
Was it control or love? Protection or paranoia? Dominic couldn’t tell. But one thing was certain—Serena Romano wasn’t the enemy.
He wasn’t the kind of man who used innocents as leverage.
Serena might’ve been the same age Alessandra was when she vanished, but that was where the similarities ended. Alessandra had been all sunlight—blonde hair, sharp brown eyes, fire in her voice. Serena was cool contrast—dark hair, green eyes, a girl born into silk and gold, untouched by dirt or consequence.
Alessandra chased danger. Serena had been kept from it.
Their worlds couldn’t have been further apart.
Even if Giovanni wasn’t the one who killed Alessandra, his list of crimes could fill a book—trafficking, drugs, murder. A man who built his empire on blood and ruin.
Dominic didn’t care which charge stuck. If this op ended with Giovanni Romano in handcuffs, that alone would be a victory.
A win worth bleeding for.
The sharp ring cut through the quiet.
Dominic froze.
That phone wasn’t supposed to ring. Ever.
He glanced at the screen—unknown number. Could’ve been spam. Could’ve been something worse. His pulse kicked up anyway. He lifted the phone to his ear, every muscle on alert.
“Russo.”
A beat of silence. Then a low voice. “Timeline’s shifted. It’s on. Tonight.”
Dominic’s gut tightened.
“Shit.”
The line went dead.
He stood there for a second, the hum of the fridge and the tick of the clock suddenly too loud. Then he set the phone down, grabbed his jacket, and let the adrenaline settle into purpose.
It was happening. Tonight.
