Chapter 4 - THE LESSON PLAN
The silence that followed Leo's words was thick and suffocating.
Norah’s stomach dropped into a bottomless void. "No," she gasped, backing away until her spine hit the stone mantelpiece. "No, no, no. He was just a teacher. He had nothing to do with this!"
Dominic didn't flinch. He slipped the wooden sparrow back into his pocket, his demeanor instantly shifting from brooding warden to commanding general.
"Is the perimeter compromised?" Dominic asked Leo, his tone flat, sharp, and stripped of all sentiment.
"Not yet," Leo answered. "Gianni and the boys have the drive locked down. But whoever took the teacher didn't do it quietly. They left his wallet on the dashboard. It was staged to make sure we noticed."
"Simon," Norah whispered, tears blurring her vision as she buried her face in her trembling hands. "They took him because he was with me. Because of that stupid date. If I hadn't agreed to go out tonight, he'd be grading papers in his living room."
Dominic turned toward her, his dark eyes fierce and uncompromising. He closed the distance between them and grabbed her by the shoulders—not roughly, but with enough force to shock her out of the spiraling panic.
"Look at me, Norah," he commanded.
She lifted her tear-streaked face, trembling violently.
"Crying won't keep him breathing," Dominic said, his grip firm. "Sal Moretti took him because he thinks the man is your leverage. He thinks you're sleeping with him. He thinks holding that schoolteacher will make you walk out of my compound with my offshore ledger in your hands."
"Then let me give it to him!" Norah cried, trying to wrench free from his hold. "Take the ledger! Give them the routing numbers! I don't care about your money, Dominic! Simon doesn't deserve to die for a crime syndicate he doesn't even know exists!"
"Listen to me carefully," Dominic growled, tightening his fingers on her shoulders until she went still. "The moment Moretti gets that ledger, he kills the teacher, he kills you, and he burns this entire city to the ground. That is how Sal operates. You give an animal meat, it doesn't leave; it asks for the rest of the carcass."
Norah looked into Dominic’s dark, merciless eyes and felt the full weight of her reality. She was trapped between a monster who ruled her life and a butcher who wanted to end it.
"What do we do?" she asked, her voice cracking.
"We look at what he left behind," Dominic said, releasing her and nodding to Leo. "Bring the teacher's wallet."
Leo reached into his coat and produced a worn brown leather bi-fold sealed inside an evidence bag. He laid it flat on the low iron table next to the fireplace.
Norah stepped forward, her chest aching. She recognized the faded leather; Simon had pulled it out at the trattoria to offer to pay before she had dropped her cash and fled.
Dominic used a clean pocketknife to slit the plastic and tipped the wallet's contents onto the stone surface.
A state driver’s license. Three credit cards with modest limits. A library card. A handful of crumpled receipts for dry cleaning and groceries. It was the catalog of a painfully simple, honest life.
"See?" Norah pleaded, pointing at the cards. "He’s nobody. He teaches tenth-grade American history at St. Jude’s."
Dominic didn't answer. He picked up the driver’s license with the tip of his knife, turning it over to inspect the magnetic strip. Then he picked up the wallet itself, running his long fingers along the inner seam where the bills were kept.
With a sharp flick of his blade, Dominic sliced through the inner nylon lining.
Something small and metallic slipped out, clicking against the stone table.
Norah leaned in, frowning. It wasn't cash. It was an encrypted, military-grade micro-SD card, stamped with a serial number beginning with the letters DOJ.
Department of Justice.
Norah stared at the small black chip, her breath catching in her throat. "What... what is that?"
Dominic let out a low, dry chuckle that held no humor whatsoever. He picked up the memory card and held it up to the firelight.
"Your humble history teacher," Dominic said, his voice dripping with venom, "is an undercover federal agent assigned to the Organized Crime Task Force."
Norah shook her head frantically, stumbling back a step. "No. That's impossible. My sister set us up! He coaches junior varsity track! He talked about sloppy joes and student council walkouts!"
"And he played you like a cheap fiddle," Dominic said, turning his cold gaze upon her. "He targeted your sister. He engineered the meetup. He knew your father was dead, he knew you were my lead accountant, and he knew you were desperate for a way out of my house."
The betrayal hit Norah harder than any threat Dominic had ever delivered.
Simon wasn't an innocent civilian caught in the crossfire. Simon was a hunter who had used her yearning for a normal life as bait. Every warm smile, every self-deprecating joke about his tweed jacket, every gentle word of comfort across that checkered tablecloth had been a calculated tactic designed to extract Dominic Mercer’s records.
"He... he didn't care about me at all," Norah murmured, a bitter numbness spreading through her veins.
"No," Dominic agreed mercilessly. "He cared about making his career on my bones."
"Then why did Moretti take him?" Norah asked, looking up as a terrifying realization dawned on her. "If Simon is a federal agent, Moretti just kidnapped a government officer. Even the mob doesn't cross that line unless—"
"Unless Moretti didn't know," Leo interjected grimly from the doorway. "Boss... if Moretti thinks Simon is just a civilian accountant's boyfriend, he’s going to torture him for Mercer’s codes. And when Simon breaks and flashes his badge, Moretti won't let him walk. He'll put him in a barrel of lye and bury him under the docks."
Norah pressed her palms against her temples. Despite Simon's deceit, despite the calculated cruelty of his undercover assignment, the thought of him being butchered in some south-side warehouse made bile rise in her throat.
"We have to stop it," Norah whispered.
Dominic looked at her with pure incredulity. "The man tried to put you in a federal penitentiary for the next thirty years, Norah. He used you."
"And you used me for four years!" she shouted back, her eyes blazing with sudden, fierce defiance. "You're both predators! But Simon was doing his job. He doesn't deserve to be executed by a madman. And if a federal agent dies because he was investigating your books, the FBI won't just come for Moretti, Dominic. They will send five hundred agents to tear your empire apart brick by brick."
Dominic stared at her in silence. The firelight flickered across the hard planes of his face, illuminating the slow calculation running behind his dark eyes.
Finally, he stepped toward the desk in the corner of the conservatory and opened a locked drawer. He pulled out a heavy black semi-automatic pistol, checked the magazine with a practiced snap of his wrist, and slid it into the holster beneath his arm.
"Get your coat, Norah," Dominic said coldly.
May you like
She blinked, startled. "Where are we going?"
"To rescue your boyfriend," Dominic replied. "Because right now, he is the only man in this city who can sign an affidavit clearing you of criminal conspiracy before I kill him myself."
