Chapter 3 - The Boss Who Begged
Dominic Rossi had never begged anyone for anything.
At thirty-six, he controlled a criminal empire that stretched from Chicago's shipping terminals to gambling rooms in Las Vegas. Men who had murdered without hesitation lowered their eyes when he entered a room. Politicians returned his calls. Enemies disappeared when negotiations failed.
Yet at 12:03 a.m., he stood in his underground garage with a phone pressed to his ear, begging the woman he had just banished to stay alive.
"Where are you?" he demanded.
"Somewhere you can't reach me."
"Bee—"
"You gave me one hour, Dominic. You should be pleased. I'm leaving."
A heavy silence followed.
Then he said something she had never heard from him before.
"I'm sorry."
For one dangerous second, she almost told him everything.
She almost explained that Lorenzo had planted the fourteen-million-dollar transfers under her credentials. That she had redirected Dominic's convoy schedule because the original route would have led him straight into an ambush. That the supposedly missing weapons were being shipped to a private compound in Indiana.
Instead, she asked, "Why did you call?"
"Because Lorenzo just tried to shoot me."
Bee closed her eyes.
She had expected the betrayal. She had not expected Dominic to survive long enough to recognize it.
"How many men are still loyal to you?" she asked.
"Enough."
"That's not a number."
"Three."
She almost laughed. Dominic Rossi, the most feared man in Chicago, had three men left.
"Then don't trust any of them."
"Who should I trust?"
The question hurt more than his earlier accusation.
"You should have trusted me."
The call went silent.
Behind Bee, footsteps approached. She slipped through a stairwell door and descended two flights before emerging into a narrow alley.
A dark sedan waited beside a dumpster.
The passenger window lowered.
A woman with silver hair and sharp green eyes stared at her.
"Get in," she ordered.
Bee recognized her from the photographs in Dominic's private files.
Isabella Rossi.
Dominic's mother, who had supposedly been living in Sicily for four years.
Bee hesitated.
Isabella leaned across the seat.
"If you want to know why Matteo is alive, why Dominic was forced to betray you, and why fourteen million dollars appeared under your name, you'd better get inside."
She opened the rear door.
"Because, Beatrice, you were never just Dominic's assistant."
May you like
Then she revealed the secret Bee had spent her entire life trying to escape.
"You're the daughter of the man who built this empire."
