Chapter 5 - THE GREENHOUSE
"Ten minutes."
The words hung in the dark library, suffocating the air out of the room.
Dominic didn't hesitate. He pulled a heavy brass paperweight from the desk and smashed it through the glass of the locked library window.
The cold night air howled into the room.
"The drop is two stories to the garden," Dominic said, brushing shards of glass off the sill. "Can you make it with that knee?"
"I don't care if my leg breaks in half," I said fiercely, wiping the tears from my face. "I'm getting my son."
Dominic looked at me. Really looked at me. The icy, unreadable mafia boss was gone. In his place was a man who looked like he was staring at a ghost.
Without a word, he reached into the open safe one more time.
He didn't pull out a weapon. He pulled out a worn, faded photograph.
He shoved it into his jacket pocket, then climbed onto the window ledge.
"I go first. I'll catch you," he ordered.
He dropped into the darkness. A second later, I heard the soft thud of his boots hitting the manicured hedges below.
I climbed up. The wind whipped my hair across my face. The pain in my knee flared like a hot iron, but the sound of Leo’s terrified voice on that intercom drowned out everything else.
I jumped.
I hit the hedges hard. Branches tore at my dress, but strong arms caught my waist before I could hit the ground. Dominic set me down gently.
"Move," he whispered.
We sprinted through the massive, sprawling gardens of the Caruso estate. The darkness was absolute, save for the faint moonlight filtering through the storm clouds.
The greenhouse sat at the far end of the property. A massive, Victorian-style glass structure that looked like a glowing crystal in the dark, lit from the inside by emergency generator lights.
As we rounded the corner of the hedgemaze, Dominic suddenly stopped, throwing his arm out to halt me.
Lying in the dirt path ahead of us was a body.
I gasped, covering my mouth.
Dominic aimed his flashlight down.
It was Charles Mercer.
He was tied up with thick gardening wire, bleeding heavily from a gunshot wound to his stomach. He was pale, gasping for air, staring up at the night sky.
Dominic knelt beside him, his gun still drawn. "Sal betrayed you."
Charles coughed, a wet, rattling sound. "He... he promised my daughter would be safe," Charles wheezed, blood bubbling on his lips. "He held her... hostage. Said I had to frame the maid... get the folder."
"Why frame Hannah?" Dominic demanded, his voice tight.
"Because she's the only one... you trust, Dom," Charles gasped. "He knew you'd never suspect her... until I planted the evidence. He wanted you paranoid... blind."
Charles looked at me, his eyes wide and terrified. "I'm sorry, Hannah. He told me... David was just a casualty. Just business."
"Where is Sal holding the boy?" Dominic demanded.
"The center atrium," Charles whispered. "He has... he has explosives, Dom. Rigged to the door. You open it... you all burn."
Charles's eyes rolled back, his breathing becoming incredibly shallow.
Dominic stood up. His jaw was set in stone.
"We can't use the doors," Dominic said, looking up at the towering glass structure. "We have to go through the roof."
"The roof is forty feet high," I said, staring at the sheer glass walls.
"There's a maintenance ladder on the north side," Dominic replied. He looked down at the brown leather folder in his hand, then at me.
"Hannah," he said quietly. "If this goes wrong... if I don't make it out..."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the faded photograph he had taken from the safe.
He handed it to me.
I took it, holding it up to the faint moonlight.
My breath hitched.
It was a picture of me.
I was sitting on a park bench, heavily pregnant, eating a pretzel. I looked young. Exhausted. Devastated.
It had been taken weeks after my husband died.
"Why do you have this?" I whispered, looking up at him.
"David saved my life when we were teenagers," Dominic said, his voice raw with emotion. "He took a bullet meant for me in the old neighborhood. I owed him everything. When he died uncovering Sal's treason... I swore I would protect his family."
He looked at my ruined stockings, my bruised arms.
"I didn't hire you as a maid because you applied, Hannah. I bought the agency you applied to. I moved you into my house to keep you safe from Sal. I failed."
Tears stung my eyes. All this time, the cold, distant billionaire wasn't ignoring me. He was watching over me.
"You didn't fail," I said fiercely. "Not yet."
Dominic nodded once. He handed me his backup pistol. "Safety is off. Point and pull."
We moved to the north side of the greenhouse.
The metal rungs of the maintenance ladder were slick with dew.
Dominic climbed first, silent and swift. I followed, gritting my teeth against the searing pain in my leg. Every step was agony. But every step brought me closer to my son.
We reached the top. The glass roof was pitched, a narrow metal walkway running along the spine.
Below us, through the frosted glass panels, we could see the center atrium.
It was bathed in the harsh, yellow light of the emergency generators.
Standing in the center of the exotic plants, holding a heavy silver revolver, was Uncle Sal.
And sitting on a wooden stool in front of him, clutching his small knees to his chest, was Leo.
But something was wrong.
Dangling from Leo’s tiny wrist, far too large and heavy for him, was a massive gold watch.
Dominic saw it through the glass. He stopped breathing.
"My father's watch," Dominic whispered.
The watch his father was wearing the night he was murdered twenty years ago. The murder that gave Sal total control of the family finances.
Sal hadn't just stolen the money.
He had murdered his own brother for it. And now, he was using that very trophy to mock Dominic.
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I gripped the metal railing, my heart screaming in my chest.
"Let's go," I whispered.
