Chapter 2 - THE ULTRASOUND
The word hung in the air between them, heavy and suffocating.
Tumor.
Dominic Russo didn’t flinch. He didn’t offer sympathy. In his world, illness was just another form of weakness, a vulnerability an enemy could exploit.
He stared at Norah, his slate-gray eyes dropping to the thick wool of her coat.
“A mass,” he repeated softly.
“Yes.” Norah’s heart hammered violently against her ribs. She kept her hands buried in her pockets. “The doctor said it’s benign. But it’s growing. That’s why I’ve been so tired.”
Dominic took a slow step forward. The space between them evaporated. He was close enough now that Norah could feel the heat radiating from his chest, close enough to see the faint gold flecks in his cold eyes.
“You paid in cash,” Dominic said, his voice a low, lethal murmur. “A cash clinic on Fourth Street for a tumor. Not an oncologist. Not a specialist.”
“I don’t have insurance—”
“You work for me,” he interrupted. “You have whatever I tell my accountants to buy for you.”
He reached out.
Norah instinctively stepped back, but Dominic’s hand darted forward, catching her wrist with terrifying speed. His grip wasn’t bruising, but it was absolute. It was a lock she could not break.
“Mr. Russo, please,” she breathed.
“If you have a tumor, Norah, you would have paperwork. Prescriptions. A referral.”
With his free hand, he reached for her coat pocket.
“Don’t!” Norah gasped, twisting her body.
But it was too late. Dominic’s hand slipped into the deep pocket of her wool coat. His fingers brushed against the glossy slip of paper. He pulled it out.
The silence that followed was the loudest Norah had ever heard.
Dominic looked at the small, black-and-white printout.
The static. The spine. The tiny, perfectly formed profile.
He didn’t yell. He didn’t throw the paper. He simply stared at it for an eternity, his face turning into a mask of pure, terrifying stone.
When he finally looked up at her, the temperature in the room seemed to drop twenty degrees.
“A tumor,” he said quietly.
Norah couldn’t speak. The lie had shattered, leaving her entirely exposed.
“Who?” Dominic asked.
The single word was a death sentence.
He didn’t ask if it was his. Why would he? He was a man who trusted no one, a man who believed the entire world was constantly plotting his downfall. In his mind, a nanny slipping out to a cash clinic wasn’t hiding a secret romance. She was hiding a compromise.
“Dominic, I can explain—”
“Who?” His voice rose, a sharp crack of authority that made the floorboards vibrate. “Is it the Moretti family? Did they pay you to get close? Is that why you stayed locked in the safe room with me that night? To secure an insurance policy?”
“No!” Norah cried, tears finally spilling over her lashes. “You know that’s not true! You know what happened between us!”
Dominic held up the ultrasound. His knuckles were white.
“I know that five months ago, my compound was breached. I know that someone inside this house disabled the security cameras. And now I find out my nanny is carrying a child and lying to my face.”
He dropped her wrist and pulled his phone from his pocket.
“Marcus,” Dominic said into the receiver, not breaking eye contact with Norah. “Get up here. Take Norah to the east wing. Lock her in the library. If she tries to leave, shoot her in the leg.”
Norah’s breath hitched. “Dominic, please, it’s yours!”
Dominic lowered the phone. A cruel, empty smile touched the corner of his mouth.
“My enemies are getting lazy if they think I’d fall for that. We’ll find out the truth when the baby is born. Until then, you belong to the house.”
He turned his back on her as heavy boots sounded in the hallway.
Norah was trapped. But as Marcus, the underboss, stepped into the room, he looked at her stomach, and a flash of dark, triumphant recognition crossed his eyes.
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Dominic didn’t know the child was his.
But Marcus did.
