Chapter 2
PART 2
Dominic carried Vivian out of the warehouse with one arm around her shoulders and his body angled between her and everything he did not want her to see.
“Look at the floor,” he said softly.
She tried. She truly did. But fear had a cruel curiosity, and her eyes betrayed her as they passed the broken plaster wall, the bent knife on the floor, the man groaning near the stairs with his hands pressed to his face.
Dominic’s voice lowered. “Vivian.”
She dropped her gaze immediately.
Outside, the rain hit her like cold glass. Mason stood by the SUV, holding the rear door open. His face was expressionless, but his eyes moved once to Dominic’s bleeding knuckles, then to Vivian’s torn sleeve.
“Do we clean the building?” Mason asked.
Dominic helped Vivian into the back seat. “Clean everything. Find Wallace. Keep him breathing.”
Vivian looked up sharply. “Wallace?”
“The foreman,” Dominic said.
“He was part of it?”
Dominic’s jaw flexed. “He ran the floor. Nothing moved without him knowing.”
Mason nodded and disappeared into the rain.
The SUV pulled away.
Inside, the leather seats were warm. The city lights smeared across the windows as they headed north toward downtown Chicago. Vivian sat with her hands folded in her lap, trying to keep them from shaking. Blood stained her fingertips. She did not know whether it was Dominic’s, the warehouse men’s, or her own from where she had scraped her palms crawling beneath the desk.
Dominic noticed.
He pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket and took her hands gently.
Vivian almost laughed at the absurdity. The most feared man on the Chicago docks was cleaning blood from her fingers like a nurse.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She stared at him. “For what?”
“For sending you there.”
“You sent me to deliver payroll,” she said. “You didn’t send me into a trap.”
His thumb paused over her knuckles.
“That’s what it was,” she continued, her voice steadier now because her mind had found a task. “A trap. They knew I was coming. The payroll envelopes were still sealed. Wallace wasn’t missing. He was waiting for me to wander.”
Dominic looked at her.
Vivian swallowed.
“The man with the knife said, ‘She’s the one from upstairs.’ Not ‘a woman.’ Not ‘the secretary.’ He knew me.”
The silence in the SUV changed shape.
Dominic turned toward the window, but Vivian could see his reflection in the glass. His expression was not human anymore. It was a locked door with fire behind it.
“Who knew your errand schedule?” he asked.
“You. Me. Cole. Your chief financial officer. Dispatch. Maybe HR if they checked the courier logs.”
Dominic’s eyes shifted back to her. “You remember all that after what happened?”
“I remember everything when I’m scared.”
That answer did something to him. It softened one edge of his face, only for a second.
The SUV did not take the exit toward Vivian’s apartment in Lincoln Park.
She sat up. “My place is the other way.”
“You’re not going home.”
“I need my things.”
“You need to stay alive.”
“My cat needs food.”
Dominic tapped the partition. It slid down.
“Send Ezra to Miss Reed’s apartment,” he told the driver. “Pick up the cat, food, litter, medication, and anything on the kitchen counter that looks important.”
Vivian blinked. “Medication?”
“You told payroll six months ago you needed a reimbursement form for Barnaby’s thyroid pills.”
She stared at him.
Dominic looked away. “I read reports.”
“You read pet reimbursement reports?”
“I read everything.”
Against every rational instinct, Vivian almost smiled.
The SUV descended into a private underground garage beneath a black glass tower overlooking the Chicago River. Dominic led her into a private elevator. Neither spoke as it rose.
His penthouse was exactly what Vivian had imagined and nothing like it at all. Expensive, yes. Beautiful, yes. But empty. A place designed by someone who trusted no memory enough to frame it. Slate floors. Low lights. Steel, glass, leather. No photographs. No softness.
“You can shower in the guest suite,” he said. “Fresh clothes will be brought up. Lock the door if you need to.”
He turned away, already reaching for another phone.
Vivian watched him flex his right hand. The skin across his knuckles was split and swelling.
“First aid kit,” she said.
He stopped. “What?”
“Where is it?”
“I’ll handle it.”
“You have one functioning hand and a crime empire falling apart before midnight. Sit down.”
For the first time all night, Dominic Hale looked surprised.
Then, very slowly, he sat at the kitchen island.
Vivian found the kit beneath the sink in the master bathroom and returned with antiseptic, gauze, and medical tape. She stood between his knees because there was nowhere else to stand and took his hand.
His skin was warm. His hand was heavy. The blood was already drying in dark patches.
“This will sting,” she said.
“It won’t.”
She poured antiseptic over his knuckles.
His jaw tightened.
“It stung,” she said.
A rough sound escaped him. Not quite a laugh. But close.
As she cleaned the cuts, her own fear settled into something colder. The warehouse. The key in the lock. The knife. The signature on the manifest.
“Whoever did this wanted me dead,” she said.
Dominic’s gaze fixed on her face.
“They wanted me to see enough to become a liability,” she continued. “Then they wanted to blame it on the men stealing from you.”
“You should not be thinking about this tonight.”
“If I don’t think, I panic.”
He went quiet.
Vivian wrapped gauze around his knuckles, careful and precise.
“Dominic,” she said. “The signature wasn’t just familiar. I saw the initials.”
His entire body stilled.
“E.M.”
Dominic’s face changed.
Vivian knew those initials. Everyone in the company did.
Elaine Mercer.
Chief Financial Officer.
White American. Harvard MBA. Forty-two years old. Always dressed in navy suits. Always polite to Vivian in the way powerful women were polite to assistants they considered furniture.
Elaine had sat ten feet from Dominic’s office for seven years.
Dominic stood so suddenly Vivian stepped back.
“I need you to stay here,” he said.
“No.”
His eyes cut to hers.
Vivian lifted her chin, even though her knees still felt weak.
“I am the only person who saw the paper. If Elaine knows I’m alive, she’ll erase everything before morning. I know her filing system. I know her habits. I know where she hides what she thinks no one else notices.”
Dominic stared at her for a long moment.
May you like
“You were almost killed tonight.”
“And tomorrow morning,” Vivian said, voice shaking but firm, “I’m going to help you find out who paid for it.”
